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STRANDED  IN  ARCADY 


OE  CALIF.  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 


'No,"  said  Prime  soberly,  "it  was — er — it  looks  as  if  it 
might  have  been  an  aeroplane." 

[Page  13. 


STRANDED 
IN  ARCADY 


BY 

FRANCIS    LYNDE 


ILLUSTRATED  BY 
ARTHUR    E.   BECHER 


CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
NEW  YORK  ::::::::::  1917 


COPYRIGHT,  1917,  B* 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  May,  1917 


To 
L.  A.  H.  L. 

WHOSE  ACCOMPLISHMENTS  IN  SIMILAR  FIELDS 
ARE  MUCH  MORE  VERSATILE  THAN 

LUCETTA'S 

THIS  BOOK  IS  AFFECTIONATELY 
INSCRIBED  BY 

"P-D." 


2131140 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  MIDDLE  OF  NOWHERE  ....  i 

II.    AMATEUR  CASTAWAYS 14 

III.  SENSIBLE  SHOES 26 

IV.  IN  THE  NIGHT 38 

V.    A  SECRET  FOR  ONE 45 

VI.     CANOEDLINGS 61 

VII.    "ROULANT  MA  BOULE" 76 

VIII.     CRACKING  VENEERS 88 

IX.     SHIPWRECK 98 

X.     HORRORS in 

XI.  "A  CRACKLING  OF  THORNS"    .     .     .  120 

XII.  IN  SEARCH  OF  AN  ANCESTOR    .     .     .  128 

XIII.  AT  CAMP  COUSIN 145 

XIV.  OF  THE  NAME  OF  BANDISH  .     .     .     .  157 
XV.    JEAN  BA'TISTE 169 

XVI.    "MARCHONS!" 180 

vii 


Contents 

CHAPTER  PACE 

XVII.  ROOTS  AND  HERBS 191 

XVIII.  HEIGHTS  AND  DEPTHS 203 

XIX.  IN  DURANCE  VILE 214 

XX.  WATSON  GRIDER 226 

XXI.  THE  FAIRY  FORTUNE 237 


viii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


"No,"  said  Prime  soberly;  "it  was — er — it  looks  as  if 

it  might  have  been  an  aeroplane"  .      .      .   Frontispiece 

FACING   PACE 

"Is  it  good  ?"  she  asked,  when  he  had  inhaled  the  first 

deep  breath 52 

"Hold  her!"  he  shouted.     "We've  got  to  make  the 

shore,  if  it  smashes  us!" 108 

"  Vraiment !  she's  one  good  gon,"  he  commented.  .  .  . 

"Were  you  get  'urn?" 172 

"None  o'  that,  now!  Ye'll  be  puttin'  yer  hands  up 
ower  yer  heids — the  baith  o'  ye — or  it'll  be  the 
waurf'rye!" 212 

"The  account  between  us  is  too  long  to  wait  for  day- 
light!"   228 


STRANDED  IN  ARCADY 


THE    MIDDLE    OF   NOWHERE 

AT  the  half-conscious  moment  of  awaken- 
ing Prime  had  a  confused  impression  that  he 
must  have  gone  to  bed  leaving  the  electric 
lights  turned  on  full-blast.  Succeeding  im- 
pressions were  even  more  disconcerting.  It 
seemed  that  he  had  also  gone  to  bed  with  his 
clothes  on;  that  the  bed  was  unaccountably 
hard;  that  the  pillow  had  borrowed  the  char- 
acteristics of  a  pillory. 

Sitting  up  to  give  these  chaotic  conclusions 
a  chance  to  clarify  themselves,  he  was  still 
more  bewildered.  That  which  had  figured  as 
the  blaze  of  the  neglected  electrics  resolved 
itself  into  the  morning  sun  reflecting  dazzle- 
ment  from  the  dimpled  surface  of  a  woodland 
lake.  The  hard  bed  proved  to  be  a  sandy 
beach;  the  pillory  pillow  a  gnarled  and 
twisted  tree  root  which  had  given  him  a 
crick  in  his  neck. 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

When  he  put  his  hand  to  the  cramped  neck 
muscle  and  moved  to  escape  the  bedazzling 
sun  reflection,  the  changed  point  of  view 
gave  him  a  shock.  Sitting  with  her  back  to 
a  tree  at  a  little  distance  was  a  strange  young 
woman — strange  in  the  sense  that  he  was 
sure  he  had  never  seen  her  before.  Like 
himself,  she  had  evidently  just  awakened, 
and  she  was  staring  at  him  out  of  wide-open, 
slate-gray  eyes.  In  the  eyes  he  saw  a  vast 
bewilderment  comparable  to  his  own,  some- 
thing of  alarm,  and  a  trace  of  subconscious 
embarrassment  as  she  put  her  hands  to  her 
hair,  which  was  sadly  tumbled. 

Prime  scrambled  to  his  feet  and  said,  "  Good 
morning" — merely  because  the  conventions, 
in  whatever  surroundings,  die  hard.  At  this 
the  young  woman  got  up,  too,  patting  and 
pinning  the  rebellious  hair  into  subjection. 

"  Good  morning,"  she  returned,  quite  calmly; 
and  then :  "  If  you — if  you  live  here,  perhaps 
you  will  be  good  enough  to  tell  me  where  I 


am/3 


Prime  checked  a  smile.  "You  beat  me 
to  it,"  he  countered  affably.  "I  was  about 
to  ask  you  if  you  could  tell  me  where  /  am." 


The  Middle  of  Nowhere 

"Don't  you  know  where  you  are?"  she 
demanded. 

"Only  relatively;  this  charming  sylvan  en- 
vironment is  doubtless  somewhere  in  America, 
but,  as  to  the  precise  spot,  I  assure  you  I  have 
no  more  idea  than  the  man  in  the  moon." 

"  It's  a  dream — it  must  be  ! "  the  young 
woman  protested  gropingly.  "Last  night  I 
was  in  a  city — in  Quebec." 

"So  was  I,"  was  the  prompt  rejoinder. 
Then  he  felt  for  his  watch,  saying:  "Wait  a 
moment,  let's  see  if  it  really  was  last  night." 

She  waited;  and  then — "Was  it?"  she  in- 
quired eagerly. 

"Yes,  it  must  have  been;  my  watch  is 
still  running." 

She  put  her  hand  to  her  head.  "I  can't 
seem  to  think  very  clearly.  If  we  were  in 
Quebec  last  night,  we  can't  be  so  very  far 
from  Quebec  this  morning.  Can't  you— 
don't  you  recognize  this  place  at  all  ? " 

Prime  took  his  first  comprehensive  survey 
of  the  surroundings.  So  far  as  could  be  seen 
there  was  nothing  but  the  lake,  with  its  far- 
ther shore  dimly  visible,  and  the  primeval 
forest  of  pine,  spruce,  fir,  and  ghostly  birch — 

3 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

a  forest  all-enveloping,  shadowy,  and  rather 
forbidding,  even  with  the  summer  morning 
sunlight  playing  upon  it. 

"It  looks  as  if  we  might  be  a  long  way 
from  Quebec/'  he  ventured.  "I  am  not 
very  familiar  with  the  Provinces,  but  these 
woods " 

She  interrupted  him  anxiously.  "A  long 
way?  How  could  it  be — in  a  single  night  ?" 
Then:  "You  are  giving  me  to  understand 
that  you  are  not — that  you  don't  know  how 
we  come  to  be  here  ? " 

"You  must  believe  that,  if  you  can't  be- 
lieve anything  else,"  he  hastened  to  say.  "I 
don't  know  where  we  are,  or  how  we  got 
here,  or  why  we  should  be  here.  In  other 
words,  I  am  not  the  kidnapper;  I'm  the  kid- 
napped— or  at  least  half  of  them." 

"It  seems  as  if  it  must  be  a  bad  dream," 
she  returned,  with  the  frown  of  perplexity 
growing  between  the  pretty  eyes.  'Things 
like  this  don't  really  happen,  you  know." 

"I  know  they  don't,  as  a  rule.  I've  tried 
to  make  them  happen,  now  and  then,  on 
paper,  but  they  always  seem  to  lack  a  good 
bit  in  the  way  of  verisimilitude." 

4 


The  Middle  of  Nowhere 

The  young  woman  turned  away  to  walk 
down  to  the  lake  edge,  where  she  knelt  and 
washed  her  face  and  hands,  drying  them 
afterward  on  her  handkerchief. 

"Well,"  she  asked,  coming  back  to  him, 
"have  you  thought  of  anything  yet  ?" 

He  shook  his  head.  "Honestly,  I  haven't 
anything  left  to  think  with.  That  part  of 
my  mind  has  basely  escaped.  But  I  have 
found  something,"  and  he  pointed  to  a  little 
heap  of  provisions  and  utensils  piled  at  the 
upper  edge  of  the  sand  belt:  a  flitch  of  bacon, 
sewn  in  canvas,  a  tiny  sack  of  flour,  a  few 
cans  of  tinned  things,  matches,  a  camper's 
frying-pan,  and  a  small  coffee-pot.  "Who- 
ever brought  us  here  didn't  mean  that  we 
should  starve  for  a  day  or  two,  at  least. 
Shall  we  breakfast  first  and  investigate  after- 
ward?" 

"'We  ?'"  she  said.     "Can  you  cook  ?" 

"Not  so  that  any  one  would  notice  it," 
he  laughed.  "Can  you?" 

She  matched  the  laugh,  and  it  relieved 
him  mightily.  It  was  her  undoubted  right 
as  a  woman  to  cry  out,  or  faint,  or  be  fool- 
ishly hysterical  if  she  chose;  the  circum- 

5 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

stances  certainly  warranted  anything.  But 
she  was  apparently  waiving  her  privilege. 

"Yes,  I  ought  to  be  able  to  cook.  When 
I  am  at  home  I  teach  domestic  science  in  a 
girls'  school.  Will  you  make  a  fire  ? " 

Prime  bestirred  himself  like  a  seasoned 
camper — which  was  as  far  as  possible  from 
being  the  fact.  There  was  plenty  of  dry  wood 
at  hand,  and  a  bit  of  stripped  birch  bark 
answered  for  kindling.  The  young  woman 
removed  her  coat  and  pulled  up  her  sleeves. 
Prime  cut  the  bacon  with  his  pocket-knife, 
and,  much  to  the  detriment  of  the  same  im- 
plement, opened  a  can  of  peaches.  For  the 
bread,  Domestic  Science  wrestled  heroically 
with  a  lack  of  appliances;  the  batter  had  to 
be  stirred  in  the  tiny  skillet  with  water  taken 
from  the  lake. 

The  cooking  was  also  difficult.  Being 
strictly  city-bred,  neither  of  them  knew 
enough  to  let  the  fire  burn  down  to  coals, 
and  they  tried  to  bake  the  pan-bread  over 
the  flames.  The  result  was  rather  smoky 
and  saddening,  and  the  young  woman  felt 
called  upon  to  apologize.  But  the  peaches, 
fished  out  of  the  tin  with  a  sharpened  birch 

6 


The  Middle  of  Nowhere 

twig  for  a  fork,  were  good,  and  so  was  the 
bacon;  and  for  sauce  there  was  a  fair  degree 
of  outdoor  hunger.  Over  the  breakfast  they 
plunged  once  more  into  the  mystery. 

"Let  us  try  it  by  the  process  of  elimina- 
tion," Prime  suggested.  "First,  let  me  see 
if  I  can  cancel  myself.  When  I  am  at  home 
in  New  York  my  name  is  Donald  Prime,  and 
I  am  a  perfectly  harmless  writer  of  stories. 
The  editors  are  the  only  people  who  really 
hate  me,  and  you  could  hardly  charge  this" 
—with  an  arm-wave  to  include  the  surround- 
ing wilderness — "to  the  vindictiveness  of  an 
editor,  could  you  ? " 

He  wished  to  make  her  laugh  again,  and  he 
succeeded — in  spite  of  the  sad  pan-bread. 

"  Perhaps  you  have  been  muck-raking  some- 
body in  your  stories,"  she  remarked.  "But 
that  wouldn't  include  me.  I  am  even  more 
harmless  than  you  are.  My  worst  enemies 
are  frivolous  girls  from  well-to-do  families 
who  think  it  beneath  them  to  learn  to  cook 
scientifically." 

"It's  a  joke,"  Prime  offered  soberly;  "it 
can't  be  anything  else."  Then :  "  If  we  only 
knew  what  is  expected  of  us,  so  that  we 

7 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

could  play  up  to  our  part.     What  is  the  last 
thing  you  remember — in  Quebec  ? " 

"The  most  commonplace  thing  in  the 
world.  I  am,  or  I  was,  a  member  of  a  vaca- 
tion excursion  party  of  school-teachers.  Last 
evening  at  the  hotel  somebody  proposed  that 
we  go  to  the  Heights  of  Abraham  and  see  the 
old  battle-field  by  moonlight/' 

"And  you  did  it?" 

"Yes.  After  we  had  tramped  all  over  the 
place,  one  of  the  young  women  asked  me  if 
I  wouldn't  like  to  go  with  her  to  the  head 
of  the  cove  where  General  Wolfe  and  his  men 
climbed  up  from  the  river.  We  went  to- 
gether, and  while  we  were  there  the  young 
woman  stumbled  and  fell  and  turned  her 
ankle — or  at  least  she  said  she  did.  I  took 
her  arm  to  help  her  back  to  the  others,  and 
in  a  little  while  I  began  to  feel  so  tired  and 
sleepy  that  I  simply  couldn't  drag  myself 
another  step.  That  is  the  last  that  I  remem- 
ber." 

"I  can't  tell  quite  such  a  straight  story," 
said  Prime,  taking  his  turn,  "but  at  any  rate 
I  shan't  begin  by  telling  you  a  lie.  I'm  afraid 
I  was — er — drunk,  you  know." 

8 


The  Middle  of  Nowhere 

"Tell  me,"  she  commanded,  as  one  who 
would  know  the  worst. 

"I,  too,  was  on  my  vacation,"  he  went  on. 
"I  was  to  meet  a  friend  of  mine  in  Boston, 
and  we  were  to  motor  together  through  New 
England.  At  the  last  moment  I  had  a  tele- 
gram from  this  friend  changing  the  plan  and 
asking  me  to  meet  him  in  Quebec.  I  arrived 
a  day  or  so  ahead  of  him,  I  suppose;  at  least, 
he  wasn't  at  the  hotel  where  he  said  he'd 
be." 

"Go  on,"  she  encouraged. 

"I  had  been  there  a  day  and  a  night,  wait- 
ing, and,  since  I  didn't  know  any  one  in 
Quebec,  it  was  becoming  rather  tiresome. 
Last  evening  at  dinner  I  happened  to  sit  in 
with  a  big,  two-fisted  young  fellow  who  con- 
fessed that  he  was  in  the  same  boat — wait- 
ing for  somebody  to  turn  up.  After  dinner 
we  went  out  together  and  made  a  round  of 
the  movies,  with  three  or  four  cafes  sand- 
wiched in  between.  I  drank  a  little,  just  to 
be  friendly  with  the  chap,  and  the  next  thing 
I  knew  I  was  trying  to  go  to  sleep  over  one 
of  the  cafe  tables.  I  seem  to  remember  that 
my  chance  acquaintance  got  me  up  and 

9 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

headed  me  for  the  hotel;  but  after  that  it's 
all  a  blank." 

"Didn't  you  know  any  better  than  to 
drink  with  a  total  stranger?"  the  young 
woman  asked  crisply. 

"Apparently  I  didn't.  But  the  three  or 
four  thimblefuls  of  cheap  wine  oughtn't  to 
have  knocked  me  out.  It  was  awful  stuff; 
worse  than  the  vin  ordinaire  they  feed  you 
in  the  Paris  wine-shops." 

"It  seems  rather  suspicious,  doesn't  it?" 
she  mused;  "your  sudden  sleepiness  ?  Are 
you — are  you  used  to  drinking  ? " 

"Tea,"  he  laughed;  "I'm  a  perfect  in- 
ebriate with  a  teapot." 

"There  must  be  an  explanation  of  some 
sort,"  she  insisted.  Then:  "Can  you  climb 
a  tree?" 

He  got  up  and  dusted  the  sand  from  his 
clothes. 

"I  haven't  done  it  since  I  used  to  pick 
apples  in  my  grandfather's  orchard  at  Ba- 
tavia,  but  I'll  try,"  and  he  left  her  to  go  in 
search  of  a  tree  tall  enough  to  serve  for  an 
outlook. 

The  young  woman  had  the  two  kitchen 
10 


The  Middle  of  Nowhere 

utensils   washed    and    sand-scoured    by   the 
time  he  came  back. 

"Well?"  she  inquired. 

"A  wild  and  woolly  wilderness,"  he  re- 
ported; "just  a  trifle  more  of  it  than  you 
can  see  from  here.  The  lake  is  five  or  six 
miles  wide  and  perhaps  twice  as  long.  There 
are  low  hills  to  the  north  and  woods  every- 
where." 

"And  no  houses  or  anything?" 

"Nothing;  for  all  I  could  see,  we  might 
be  the  only  two  human  beings  on  the  face 
of  the  earth." 

"You  seem  to  be  quite  cheerful  about  it," 
she  retorted. 

He  grinned  good-naturedly.  "That  is  a 
matter  of  temperament.  I'd  be  grouchy 
enough  if  it  would  do  any  good.  I  shall  lose 
my  motor  trip  through  New  England." 

'Think — think  hard!"  the  young  woman 
pleaded.  "Since  there  is  no  sign  of  a  road, 
we  must  have  come  in  a  boat;  in  that  case 
we  can't  be  very  far  from  Quebec.  Surely 
there  must  be  some  one  living  on  the  shore 
of  a  lake  as  big  as  this.  We  must  walk  until 
we  find  a  house." 

ii 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"We'll  do  anything  you  say,"  Prime  agreed; 
and  they  set  out  together,  following  the  lake 
shore  to  the  left,  chiefly  because  the  beach 
broadened  in  that  direction  and  so  afforded 
easy  walking. 

A  tramp  of  a  mile  northward  scarcely 
served  to  change  the  point  of  view.  There 
was  no  break  in  the  encircling  forest,  and  at 
the  end  of  the  mile  they  came  to  a  deeply 
indented  bay,  where  the  continuing  shore 
was  in  plain  view  for  a  doubling  of  another 
mile.  The  search  for  inhabitants  seeming  to 
promise  nothing  in  this  direction,  they  turned 
and  retraced  their  steps  to  the  breakfast 
camp,  still  puzzling  over  the  tangle  of  mys- 
teries. 

"Can't  you  think  of  any  way  of  account- 
ing for  it  ?"  the  young  woman  urged  for  the 
twentieth  time  in  the  puzzlings. 

"I  can  think  of  a  million  ways — all  of  them 
blankly  impossible,"  said  Prime.  "It's  sim- 
ply a  chaotic  joke !" 

The  young  woman  shook  her  head.  "I 
have  lost  my  sense  of  humor,"  she  confessed, 
adding:  "I  shall  go  stark,  staring  mad  if  we 
can't  find  out  something ! " 

12 


The  Middle  of  Nowhere 

More  to  keep  things  from  going  from  bad 
to  worse  than  for  any  other  reason,  Prime 
suggested  a  walk  in  the  opposite  direction — 
southward  from  the  breakfast  camp.  While 
they  were  still  within  sight  of  the  ashes  of 
the  breakfast  fire  they  made  a  discovery. 
The  loose  beach  sand  was  tracked  back  and 
forth,  and  in  one  place  there  were  scorings  as 
if  some  heavy  body  had  been  dragged.  Just 
beyond  the  footprints  there  were  wheel  tracks, 
beginning  abruptly  and  ending  in  the  same 
manner  a  hundred  yards  farther  along.  The 
wheel  tracks  were  parallel  but  widely  sepa- 
rated, ill-defined  in  the  loose  sand  but  easily 
traceable. 

"A  wagon  ?"  questioned  the  young  woman. 

"No,"  said  Prime  soberly;  "it  was — er — 
it  looks  as  if  it  might  have  been  an  aeroplane." 


II 

AMATEUR   CASTAWAYS 

LUCETTA  MILLINGTON — she  had  told  Prime 
her  name  on  the  tramp  to  the  northward — 
sat  down  in  the  sand,  elbows  on  knees  and  her 
chin  propped  in  her  hands. 

"You  say  'aeroplane5  as  if  it  suggested 
something  familiar  to  you,  Mr.  Prime,"  she 
prompted. 

Truly  it  did  suggest  something  to  Prime, 
and  for  a  moment  his  mouth  went  dry. 
Grider,  the  man  he  was  to  have  met  in  Quebec, 
was  a  college  classmate,  a  harebrained  young 
barbarian,  rich,  an  outdoor  fanatic,  an  owner 
of  fast  yachts,  a  driver  of  fast  cars,  and  lat- 
terly a  dabbler  in  aviatics.  Idle  enough  to 
be  full  of  extravagant  fads  and  fancies,  and 
wealthy  enough  to  indulge  them,  this  young 
barbarian  made  friends  of  his  enemies  and 
enemies  of  his  friends  with  equal  facility — the 
latter  chiefly  through  the  medium  of  con- 
scienceless practical  jokes  evolved  from  a 
Homeric  sense  of  humor  too  ruthless  to  be 


Amateur  Castaways 

appreciated  by  mere  twentieth-century  weak- 
lings. 

Prime  had  more  than  once  been  the  good- 
natured  victim  of  these  jokes,  and  his  heart 
sank  within  him.  It  was  plain  now  that 
they  had  both  been  conveyed  to  this  out- 
landish wilderness  in  an  aircraft  of  some  sort, 
and  there  was  little  doubt  in  his  mind  that 
Grider  had  been  at  the  controls. 

"It's  a — it's  a  joke,  just  as  I  have  been 
trying  to  tell  you,"  he  faltered  at  length. 
"We  have  been  kidnapped,  and  Pm  awfully 
afraid  I  know  the  man  who  did  it,"  and 
thereupon  he  gave  her  a  rapid-fire  sketch  of 
Grider  and  Grider's  wholly  barbarous  and  ir- 
responsible proclivities. 

Miss  Millington  heard  him  through  with- 
out comment,  still  with  her  chin  in  her  hands. 

"You  are  standing  there  and  telling  me 
calmly  that  he  did  this — this  unspeakable 
thing  ? "  she  exclaimed  when  the  tale  was 
told.  Then,  after  a  momentary  pause:  "I 
am  trying  to  imagine  the  kind  of  man  who 
could  be  so  ferociously  inhuman.  Frankly, 
I  can't,  Mr.  Prime." 

"No,  I  fancy  you  can't;  I  couldn't  imagine 
15 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

him  myself,  and  I  earn  my  living  by  imagin- 
ing people — and  things.  Grider  is  in  a  class 
by  himself.  I  have  always  told  him  that  he 
was  born  about  two  thousand  years  too  late. 
Back  in  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar,  now,  they 
might  have  appreciated  his  classic  sense  of 
humor." 

fie  stole  a  glance  at  the  impassive  face 
framed  between  the  supporting  palms.  It 
was  evident  that  Miss  Millington  was  freez- 
ing silently  in  a  heroic  effort  to  restrain  her- 
self from  bursting  into  flames  of  angry  re- 
sentment. 

"You  may  enjoy  having  such  a  man  for 
your  friend,"  she  suggested  with  chilling 
emphasis,  "but  I  think  there  are  not  very 
many  people  who  would  care  to  share  him 
with  you.  Perhaps  you  have  done  some- 
thing to  earn  the  consequences  of  this 
wretched  joke,  but  I  am  sure  /  haven't. 
Why  should  he  include  me  ? " 

Prime  suspected  that  he  knew  this,  too, 
and  he  had  to  summon  all  his  reserves  of 
fortitude  before  he  could  bring  himself  to 
the  point  of  telling  her.  Yet  it  was  her 
due. 

16 


Amateur  Castaways 

"I  don't  know  what  you  will  think  of  me, 
Miss  Millington,  but  I  guess  the  truth  ought 
to  be  told.  Grider  has  always  ragged  me 
about  my  women — er — that  is,  the  women 
in  my  stories,  I  mean.  He  says  they  are 
all  alike,  and  all  sticks;  merely  wooden 
manikins — womanikins,  he  calls  them — upon 
which  to  hang  an  evening  gown.  I  shouldn't 
wonder  if  it  were  partly  true;  I  don't  know 
women  very  well." 

"Go  on,"  she  commanded. 

"The  last  time  I  was  with  Grider — it 
was  about  two  weeks  ago — he  was  partic- 
ularly obnoxious  about  the  girl  in  my  last 
bit  of  stuff — the  story  that  was  printed  in 
the  New  Era  last  month.  He  said — er — he 
said  I  ought  to  be  marooned  on  some  desert 
island  with  a  woman;  that  after  an  experi- 
ence of  that  kind  I  might  be  able  to  draw 
something  that  wouldn't  be  a  mere  carica- 
ture of  the  sex." 

At  this,  as  was  most  natural,  Miss  Milling- 
ton's  ice  melted  in  a  sudden  and  uncontrol- 
lable blaze  of  indignation. 

"Are  you  trying  to  tell  me  that  this  atro- 
cious friend  of  yours  has  taken  me,  a  total 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

stranger,  to  complete  his  cast  of  characters 
in  this  wretched  burlesque  ? "  she  flashed  out. 

"I  don't  wish  to  believe  it,"  he  protested. 
"It  doesn't  seem  possible  for  any  human 
being  to  do  such  a  thing.  But  I  know  Grider 
so  well " 

"It  is  the  smallest  possible  credit  to  you, 
Mr.  Prime,"  she  snapped.  "You  ought  to 
be  ashamed  to  have  such  a  man  for  a 
friend!" 

"I  am,"  he  acceded,  humbly  enough. 
"Grider  weighs  about  fifty  pounds  more 
than  I  do,  and  he  took  three  initials  in 
athletics  in  the  university.  But  I  pledge 
you  my  word  I  shall  beat  him  to  a  frazzle 
for  this  when  I  get  the  chance." 

"A  lot  of  good  that  does  us  now !"  scoffed 
the  poor  victim.  And  then  she  got  up  and 
walked  away,  leaving  him  to  stand  gazing 
abstractedly  at  the  wheel  tracks  of  the  kid- 
napping air-machine. 

Having  lived  the  unexciting  life  of  a 
would-be  man  of  letters,  Prime  had  had 
none  of  the  strenuous  experiences  which 
might  have  served  to  preface  a  situation  such 
as  this  in  which  he  found  himself  struggling 

18 


Amateur  Castaways 

like  a  fly  in  a  web.  It  was  absurdly,  ridic- 
ulously impossible,  and  yet  it  existed  as  a 
situation  to  be  met  and  dealt  with.  Watch- 
ing the  indignant  young  woman  furtively, 
he  saw  that  she  went  back  to  sit  down  beside 
the  ashes  of  the  breakfast  fire,  again  with 
her  chin  in  her  hands.  Meaning  to  be  cau- 
tiously prudent,  he  rolled  and  smoked  a 
cigarette  before  venturing  to  rejoin  her, 
hoping  that  the  lapse  of  time  might  clear 
the  air  a  little. 

She  was  staring  aimlessly  at  the  dimpled 
surface  of  the  lake  when  he  came  up  and 
took  his  place  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
ashes.  The  little  heap  of  provisions  gave 
him  an  idea  and  an  opening,  but  she  struck 
in  ahead  of  him. 

"Let  me  know  when  you  expect  me  to 
pose  for  you,"  she  said  without  turning  her 
head. 

"I  was  an  idiot  to  tell  you  that!"  he  ex- 
ploded. "Can't  you  understand  that  that 
fool  suggestion  about  the  desert  island  and 
a — er — a  woman  was  Grider's  and  not  mine  ? 
How  could  I  know  that  he  would  ever  be 
criminal  enough  to  turn  it  into  a  fact?" 

19 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"Oh,  if  you  can  call  it  criminal,  and  really 
mean  it — "  she  threw  out. 

"I'll  call  it  anything  in  the  vocabulary  if 
only  you  won't  quarrel  with  me.  Goodness 
knows,  things  are  bad  enough  without 
that!" 

She  let  him  see  a  little  more  of  her  face. 
The  frown  had  disappeared,  and  there  were 
signs  that  the  storm  of  indignation  was 
passing. 

"I  suppose  it  isn't  a  particle  of  use  to 
quarrel,"  she  admitted.  "What  is  done  is 
done  and  can't  be  helped,  however  much  we 
may  agree  to  despise  your  barbarous  friend, 
Mr.  Grider.  How  is  it  all  going  to  end  ? " 

At  this  Prime  aired  his  small  idea.  "Our 
provisions  won't  last  more  than  a  day  or 
two;  they  were  evidently  not  intended  to. 
If  that  means  anything,  it  means  that  Grider 
will  come  back  for  us  before  long.  He  cer- 
tainly can't  do  less." 

"To-day?" 

"Let  us  hope  so.  Have  you  ever  camped 
out  in  the  woods  before  ?" 

"Never." 

"Neither   have   I.      What   I    don't   know 

20 


Amateur  Castaways 

about  woodcraft  would  make  a  much  larger 
book  than  any  I  ever  hope  to  write.  You 
probably  guessed  that  when  you  saw  me 
make  the  fire." 

The  corners  of  the  pretty  mouth  were 
twitching.  "And  you  probably  guessed  my 
part  of  it  when  you  saw  me  try  to  make  that 
dreadful  pan-bread.  I  can  cook;  really  I 
can,  Mr.  Prime;  but  when  one  has  been  used 
to  having  everything  imaginable  to  do  it 
with " 

Prime  thought  he  might  venture  to  laugh 
once  more.  r<Your  revenge  is  in  your  own 
hands;  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  continue  to 
make  the  bread.  It'll  get  me  in  time.  My 
digestion  isn't  particularly  good,  you  know." 

"Do  you  really  think  we  shall  be  rescued 
soon  ?" 

"For  the  sake  of  my  own  sanity,  I'm 
obliged  to  think  it." 

"And  in  the  meantime  we  must  sit  here 
and  wait  ?" 

"We  needn't  make  the  waiting  any  harder 
than  we  are  obliged  to.  Suppose  we  call  it 
a — er — a  sort  of  surprise-party  picnic.  I 
imagine  it  is  no  use  for  us  to  try  to  escape. 

21 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

Grider  probably  picked  the  lonesomest  place 
he  knew  of." 

She  fell  in  with  the  idea  rather  more 
readily  than  he  could  have  hoped,  and  it 
gave  him  a  freshening  interest  in  her.  The 
women  he  knew  best  were  not  so  entirely 
sensible.  During  what  remained  of  the  fore- 
noon they  rambled  together  in  the  forest, 
care-free  for  the  moment  and  postponing  the 
evil  day.  In  such  circumstances  their  ac- 
quaintance grew  by  leaps  and  bounds,  and 
when  they  came  back  to  make  a  renewed 
attack  upon  the  provisions,  the  picnic  spirit 
was  still  in  the  saddle. 

The  afternoon  was  spent  in  much  the 
same  manner;  and  in  the  absence  of  the 
conventional  restraints,  a  good  many  harm- 
less confidences  were  exchanged.  Before  the 
day  was  ended  the  young  woman  had  heard 
the  moving  story  of  Prime's  struggle  for  a 
foothold  in  the  field  of  letters,  a  struggle 
which,  he  was  modest  enough  to  say,  was 
still  in  the  making;  and  in  return  she  had 
given  her  own  story,  which  was  commonplace 
enough — so  many  years  of  school,  so  many  in 
a  Middle  Western  coeducational  college,  two 

22 


Amateur  Castaways 

more   of  them    as    a   teacher   in   the   girls' 
school. 

"Humdrum,  isn't  it?"  she  said.  They 
had  made  the  evening  fire,  and  she  was  try- 
ing to  cook  two  vegetables  and  the  inevitable 
pan-bread  in  the  one  small  skillet.  "This  is 
my  first  real  adventure.  I  wish  I  might 
know  whether  I  dare  enjoy  it  as  much  as 
I'd  like  to." 

"Why  not?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  the  conventions,  I  suppose.  We  can't 
run  fast  enough  or  far  enough  to  get  away 
from  them.  I  am  wondering  what  the  senior 
faculty  would  say  if  it  could  see  me  just  now." 

Prime  grinned  appreciatively.  "It  would 
probably  shriek  and  expire." 

"Happily  it  can't  see;  and  to-morrow— 
surely  Mr.  Grider  will  come  back  for  us  to- 
morrow, won't  he  ? " 

"We  are  going  to  sleep  soundly  in  that 
comforting  belief,  anyway.  Which  reminds 
me:  you  will  have  to  have  some  sort  of  a 
place  to  sleep  in.  Why  didn't  I  think  of 
that  before  dark  ?" 

Immediately  after  supper,  and  before  he 
would  permit  himself  to  roll  a  cigarette  from 

23 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

the  diminishing  supply  of  precious  tobacco, 
Prime  fell  upon  his  problem,  immensely 
willing  but  prodigiously  inexperienced.  At 
first  he  thought  he  would  build  a  shack,  but 
the  lack  of  an  axe  put  that  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. Round  by  round,  ambition  descended 
the  ladder  of  necessity,  and  the  result  was 
nothing  better  than  a  camper's  bed  of  broken 
pine  twigs  sheltered  and  housed  in  by  a  sort 
of  bower  built  from  such  tree  branches  as 
he  could  break  off  by  main  strength. 

The  young  woman  did  not  withhold  her 
meed  of  praise,  especially  after  she  had  seen 
his  blistered  hands,  which  were  also  well 
daubed  with  pitch  from  the  pines. 

"It's  a  shame!"  she  said.  "I  ought  not 
to  have  let  you  work  so  hard.  If  it  should 
happen  to  rain,  you'd  need  the  shelter  much 
more  than  I  should." 

"Why  do  you  say  that  ?" 

"You  don't  look  so  very  fit,"  was  the 
calm  reply;  "and  I  am  fit.  Do  you  know, 
my  one  ambition,  as  a  little  girl,  was  to  grow 
up  and  be  an  acrobat  in  a  circus?" 

"And  yet  you  landed  in  the  laboratory  of 
a  girls'  school,"  he  laughed. 

24 


Amateur  Castaways 

"Not  exclusively,"  she  countered  quickly. 
"Last  year  I  was  also  an  assistant  in  the 
gymnasium.  Swimming  was  my  specialty, 
but  I  taught  other  things  as  well." 

Prime  laughed  again.  "And  I  can't  swim 
a  single  stroke,"  he  confessed.  "Isn't  that 
a  humiliating  admission  on  the  part  of  a 
man  who  has  lived  the  greater  part  of  his 
lite  in  sight  of  the  ocean  ?" 

Miss  Millington  said  she  thought  it  was, 
and  in  such  gladsome  fashion  the  evening 
wore  away.  When  it  came  time  to  sleep, 
the  lately  risen  moon  lighted  the  young 
woman  to  her  bower;  and  Prime,  replenish- 
ing the  fire,  made  his  bed  in  the  sand,  the 
unwonted  exertions  of  the  day  and  evening 
putting  him  to  sleep  before  he  had  fairly 
fitted  himself  to  the  inequalities  of  his  bur- 
row below  the  tree  roots. 


Ill 

SENSIBLE    SHOES 

THE  dawn  of  the  second  morning  was 
much  like  that  of  the  first,  cool  and  crystal 
clear,  and  with  the  sun  beating  out  a  path- 
way of  molten  gold  across  the  mirror-like 
surface  of  the  solitary  lake. 

Prime  bestirred  himself  early,  meaning  to 
get  the  breakfast  under  way  single-handed 
while  Miss  Millington  slept.  But  the  young 
woman  who  had  described  herself  as  being 
"fit"  had  stolen  a  march  upon  him.  He  was 
frying  the  bacon  when  she  came  skimming 
up  the  beach  with  her  hair  flying. 

"I  got  up  early  and  didn't  want  to  disturb 
you,"  she  told  him.  "There  is  a  splendid 
swimming  place  just  around  that  point;  I 
don't  know  when  I've  enjoyed  a  dip  more. 
Wouldn't  you  like  to  try  it  while  I  dry  my 
hair  and  make  some  more  of  the  homicidal 
bread?" 

Prime  went  obediently  and  took  the  re- 
quired bath,  finding  the  water  bracingly  cold 

26 


Sensible  Shoes 

and  scarcely  shallow  enough  to  be  reassuring 
to  a  non-swimmer.  Over  the  breakfast  which 
followed,  the  picnic  spirit  still  presided, 
though  by  now  it  was  beginning  to  lose  a 
little  of  the  lilt.  For  one  thing,  the  bacon 
and  the  pan-bread,  though  they  were  amelio- 
rated somewhat  by  the  tinned  things,  were 
growing  a  trifle  monotonous;  for  another,  the 
limitless  expanse  of  lake  and  sky  and  forest 
gave  forth  no  sign  of  the  hoped-for  rescue. 

After  breakfast  they  made  a  careful  cal- 
culation to  determine  how  long  their  pro- 
visions would  last.  This,  too,  was  unhopeful. 
With  reasonable  economy  they  might  eat 
through  another  day.  Beyond  that  lay  a 
chance  of  famine. 

"Surely  Grider  will  come  back  for  us  to- 
day," Prime  asserted  when  Domestic  Science 
had  done  its  best  in  apportioning  the  sup- 
plies. But  at  this  the  young  woman  shook 
her  head  doubtfully. 

"I  have  had  time  to  think,"  she  an- 
nounced. "It  is  all  a  guess,  you  know — 
this  about  Mr.  Grider — and  the  more  I 
think  of  it  the  more  incredible  it  seems. 
Consider  a  moment.  To  make  the  kid- 

27 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

napping  possible  we  must  both  have  been 
drugged.  That  is  a  serious  matter — too 
serious  to  have  a  part  in  the  programme  pf 
the  most  reckless  practical  joker/* 

Prime  looked  up  quickly.  "I  might  have 
been  drugged  very  easily.  But  you  ? " 

The  young  woman  bared  a  rounded  arm 
to  show  a  minute  red  dot  half-way  between 
wrist  and  elbow.  "I  told  you  about  the 
young  woman  who  stumbled  and  turned  her 
ankle:  when  I  took  hold  of  her  to  help  her, 
something  pricked  my  arm.  She  said  it  was 
a  pin  in  the  sleeve  of  her  coat  and  apologized 
for  having  been  so  careless  as  to  leave  it 
there." 

Prime  looked  closely  at  the  red  dot. 

"A  hypodermic  needle?"  he  suggested. 

She  nodded.  'That  is  why  I  became  so 
sleepy.  And  your  potion  was  put  in  the 
wine,  which  you  say  tasted  so  bad." 

Prime  admitted  the  deduction  without  prej- 
udice to  his  belief  that  Grider  was  the  arch- 
plotter,  saying:  "Grider  is  quite  capable  of 
anything,  if  the  notion  appealed  to  him. 
And,  of  course,  he  must  have  had  hired  con- 
federates; he  couldn't  manage  it  all  alone." 

28 


Sensible  Shoes 

"Still,"  she  urged,  "it  seems  to  me  that 
we  ought  to  be  trying  to  help  ourselves  in 
some  way.  It  doesn't  seem  defensible  just 
to  sit  here  and  wait,  on  the  chance  that  your 
guess  is  going  to  prove  true." 

Prime  laughed.  "You  are  always  and 
most  eminently  logical.  Where  shall  we 
begin?" 

"At  the  geography  end  of  it,"  she  replied 
calmly.  "How  far  could  an  aeroplane  fly 
in  a  single  night  ?" 

Prime  took  time  to  think  about  it.  He 
had  never  had  occasion  to  use  a  long  aero- 
plane flight  in  any  of  his  stories;  hence  the 
special  information  was  lacking.  But  com- 
mon sense  and  a  few  figures  helped  out — so 
many  hours,  so  many  miles  an  hour,  total 
distance  so  much. 

"Two  hundred  miles,  let  us  say,  as  an 
extreme  limit,"  he  estimated,  and  at  this 
the  young  woman  gave  a  faint  little  shriek. 

"Two  hundred  miles!  Why,  that  is  as 
far  as  from  Cincinnati  to  Lake  Erie !  Surely 
we  can't  be  that  far  from  Quebec !" 

"I  merely  mentioned  that  distance  as  the 
limit.  We  are  evidently  somewhere  deep  in 

29 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

the  northern  woods.  I  don't  know  much 
about  the  geography  of  this  region — never 
having  had  to  stage  a  story  in  it — but  a  lake 
of  this  size,  with  miles  of  marketable  timber 
on  its  shores,  argues  one  of  two  things:  it  is 
too  far  from  civilization  to  have  yet  tempted 
the  lumbermen,  or  else  it  has  no  outlet  large 
enough  to  admit  of  logging  operations.  You 
may  take  your  choice." 

"But  two  hundred  miles!"  she  gasped. 
"If  some  one  doesn't  come  after  us,  we  shall 
never  get  out  alive  !" 

"That  is  why  I  think  we  ought  to  wait," 
said  Prime  quietly. 

So  they  did  wait  throughout  the  entire 
forenoon,  sitting  for  the  most  part  under 
the  shade  of  the  shore  trees,  killing  time  and 
talking  light-heartedly  against  the  grim  con- 
clusion that  each  passing  hour  was  forcing 
upon  them.  They  contrived  to  keep  it  up 
to  and  through  the  noonday  seance  with  the 
cooking  fire;  but  after  that  the  barriers,  on 
the  young  woman's  part,  went  out  with  a 
rush. 

"I  simply  can't  stand  it  any  longer,"  she 
protested.  "We  must  do  something,  Mr. 

30 


Sensible  Shoes 

Prime.  We  can  at  least  walk  somewhere 
and  carry  the  bits  of  provisions  along  with 
us.  Why  should  we  stay  right  in  this  one 
spot  until  we  starve  ? " 

"I  am  still  clinging  to  the  Grider  suppo- 
sition," Prime  admitted.  "If  we  move  away 
from  here  he  might  not  be  able  to  find  us." 

"It  is  only  a  supposition,"  she  countered 
quickly.  "You  accept  it,  but,  while  I  haven't 
anything  better  to  offer,  I  cannot  make  it 
seem  real." 

"If  you  throw  Grider  out  of  it,  it  becomes 
an  absolutely  impossible  riddle." 

"I  know;  but  everything  is  impossible. 
We  are  awake  and  alive  and  lost,  and  these 
are  the  only  facts  we  can  be  sure  of."  Then 
she  added:  "It  will  be  so  much  easier  to 
bear  if  we  are  only  doing  something !" 

Prime  had  an  uncomfortable  feeling  that 
a  move  would  be  a  definite  abandonment  of 
the  only  reasonable  hope;  but  he  had  no 
further  argument  to  adduce,  and  the  prep- 
arations for  the  move  were  quickly  made. 
Though  the  young  woman  was  the  disbeliever 
in  the  Grider  hypothesis,  it  was  at  her  sug- 
gestion that  Prime  wrote  a  note  on  the  back 

31 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

of  a  pocket-worn  letter  and  left  it  sticking  in 
a  cleft  stake  by  the  waterside;  the  note  ad- 
vertising the  direction  they  were  about  to  take. 
They  had  no  plan  other  than  to  try  to  find 
the  lake's  outlet,  and  to  this  end  they  laid 
their  course  southward  along  the  shore,  divid- 
ing the  small  "tote-load"  of  dunnage  at  the 
young  woman's  insistence. 

So  long  as  they  had  the  sandy  lake  margin 
for  a  path,  the  going  was  easy,  but  in  a  little 
time  the  beach  disappeared  in  a  rocky  shore, 
with  the  forest  crowding  closely  upon  the 
water,  and  they  were  forced  to  make  a  long 
circuit  inland.  Still  having  the  protective 
instinct,  Prime  "broke  trail"  handsomely  for 
his  companion,  but,  since  he  was  something 
less  than  an  athlete,  the  long  afternoon  of  it 
told  upon  him  severely;  so  severely,  indeed, 
that  he  was  glad  to  throw  himself  down  upon 
the  sands  to  rest  when  they  finally  came 
back  to  the  lake  on  the  shore  of  a  narrow 
bay. 

"I  didn't  know  before  how  much  I  lacked 
of  being  a  real  man,"  he  admitted,  stretching 
himself  luxuriously  upon  his  back  to  stare  up 
into  the  sunset  sky.  Then,  as  if  it  had  just 

32 


Sensible  Shoes 

occurred  to  him:  "Say — it  must  have  been 
something  fierce  for  you." 

"I  am  all  right,"  was  the  cheerful  reply. 
"But  I  shall  never  get  over  being  thankful 
that  I  put  on  a  pair  of  sensible  shoes,  night 
before  last,  to  walk  to  the  Heights  of  Abra- 
ham." 

After  he  had  rested  and  was  beginning  to 
grow  stiff,  Prime  sat  up. 

"We  can't  go  much  farther  before  dark; 
shall  we  camp  here  ? "  he  asked. 

The  young  woman  shook  her  head.  "We 
can't  see  anything  from  here;  it  is  so  shut 
in.  Can't  we  go  on  a  little  farther?" 

"Sure,"  Prime  assented,  scrambling  up 
and  stooping  to  rub  the  stiffness  out  of  his 
calves,  and  at  this  the  aimless  march  was 
renewed,  to  end  definitely  a  few  minutes 
later  at  the  intake  of  a  stream  flowing  silently 
out  of  the  lake  to  the  southeastward;  a 
stream  narrow  and  not  too  swift,  but  suf- 
ficiently deep  to  bar  their  way. 

Twilight  was  stealing  softly  through  the 
shadowy  aisles  of  the  forest  when  they  pre- 
pared to  camp  at  the  lake-shore  edge  of  the 
wood.  Prime  made  the  camp-fire,  and,  since 

33 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

the  lake  water  was  a  little  roiled  at  the  outlet 
mouth,  he  took  one  of  the  empty  fruit-tins 
and  crossed  the  neck  of  land  to  the  river. 
Working  his  way  around  a  thicket  of  under- 
growth, he  came  upon  the  stream  at  a  point 
where  the  little  river,  as  if  gathering  itself 
for  its  long  journey  to  the  sea,  spread  away 
in  a  quiet  and  almost  currentless  reach. 

Climbing  down  the  bank  to  fill  the  tin, 
he  found  a  startling  surprise  lying  in  wait 
for  him.  Just  below  the  overhanging  bank 
a  large  birch-bark  canoe,  well  filled  with 
dunnage,  was  drawn  out  upon  a  tiny  beach. 
His  first  impulse  was  to  rush  back  to  his 
companion  with  the  good  news  that  their 
rescue  was  at  hand;  the  next  was  possibly 
a  hand-down  from  some  far-away  Indian- 
dodging  ancestor:  perhaps  it  would  be  well 
first  to  find  out  into  whose  hands  they  were 
going  to  fall. 

The  canoe  itself  told  him  nothing,  and 
neither  did  the  lading,  which  included  a 
good  store  of  eatables.  There  was  an  air  of 
isolation  about  the  birch-bark  which  gave 
him  the  feeling  that  it  had  been  beached  for 
some  time,  and  the  dry  paddles  lying  inside 

34 


Sensible  Shoes 

confirmed  the  impression.  He  listened,  mo- 
mently expecting  to  hear  sounds  betraying 
the  presence  of  the  owners,  but  the  silence 
of  the  sombre  forest  was  unbroken  save  by 
the  lapping  of  the  little  wavelets  on  the 
near-by  lake  shore. 

Realizing  that  Miss  Millington  would  be 
waiting  for  her  bread-mixing  water,  Prime 
filled  the  tin  and  recrossed  the  small  penin- 
sula. 

"I  was  beginning  to  wonder  if  you  were 
lost,"  said  the  bread-maker.  "Did  you 
have  to  go  far  ?" 

"No,  not  very  far."  Then,  snatching  at 
the  first  excuse  that  offered:  "I  saw  some 
berries  on  the  river-bank.  Let  me  have  the 
tin  again  and  I'll  see  if  I  can't  gather  a  few 
before  it  grows  too  dark." 

Having  thus  given  a  plausible  reason  for  a 
longer  absence,  he  went  back  to  the  canoe  to 
look  in  the  fading  light  for  tracks  in  the  sand. 
Now  that  he  made  a  business  of  searching 
for  them,  he  found  plenty  of  them;  heelless 
tracks  as  if  the  feet  that  had  made  them  had 
been  shod  with  moccasins.  A  little  farther 
down  the  stream-side  there  were  broken 

35 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

bushes  and  a  small  earth-slide  to  show  where 
somebody  had  scrambled  up  to  the  forest 
level.  Following  the  trail  he  soon  found 
himself  in  a  natural  clearing,  grass-grown 
and  running  back  from  the  river  a  hundred 
yards  or  more.  In  the  centre  of  this  clearing 
he  came  upon  the  ashes  of  five  separate 
fires,  disposed  in  the  form  of  a  rude  cross. 

Still  there  was  no  sign  of  the  canoe-owners 
themselves,  and  the  discovery  of  the  curiously 
arranged  ash-heaps  merely  added  more  mys- 
tery to  mystery.  The  fires  had  been  dead  for 
some  time.  Of  this  Prime  assured  himself 
by  thrusting  his  hand  into  the  ashes.  Clearly 
the  camp,  if  it  were  a  camp,  had  been  aban- 
doned for  some  hours  at  least.  The  gather- 
ing dusk  warned  him  that  it  would  be  useless 
to  try  to  track  the  fire-makers,  and  he  turned 
to  make  his  way  back  to  the  lake  shore  and 
supper. 

It  was  in  the  edge  of  the  glade,  under  the 
gloomy  shadow  of  a  giant  spruce,  that  he 
stumbled  blindly  over  some  reluctantly  yield- 
ing obstacle  and  fell  headlong.  Regaining  his 
feet  quickly  with  a  nameless  fear  unnerving 
him,  he  stooped  and  groped  under  the  shad- 

36 


Sensible  Shoes 

owing  tree,  drawing  back  horror-stricken  when 
his  hand  came  in  contact  with  the  stiffened 
arm  of  a  corpse. 

He  had  matches  in  his  pocket,  and  he 
found  one  and  lighted  it.  His  hand  shook 
so  that  the  match  went  out  and  he  had  to 
light  another.  By  the  brief  flare  of  the  sec- 
ond match  he  saw  a  double  horror.  Lying  in 
a  little  depression  between  two  spreading  roots 
of  the  spruce  were  the  bodies  of  two  men 
locked  in  a  death-grip.  Another  match  visu- 
alized the  tragedy  in  all  its  ghastly  details. 
The  men  were  apparently  Indians,  or  half- 
breeds,  and  it  had  been  a  duel  to  the  death, 
fought  with  knives. 


37 


IV 

IN   THE    NIGHT 

PRIME  made  his  way  to  the  camp-fire  at 
the  lake  edge,  a  prey  to  many  disturbing 
emotions.  Having  lived  a  life  practically 
void  of  adventure,  the  sudden  collision  with 
bloody  tragedy  shocked  him  prodigiously. 
Out  of  the  welter  of  emotions  he  dug  a  single 
fixed  and  unalterable  decision.  Come  what 
might,  his  companion  must  be  kept  from  all 
knowledge  of  the  duel  and  its  ghastly  out- 
come. 

"  Dear  me !  You  look  as  if  you  had  seen 
a  ghost,"  was  the  way  the  battle  of  con- 
cealment was  opened  when  he  came  within 
the  circle  of  firelight.  "Did  you  find  any 
berries  ? " 

Prime  shook  his  head.  "No,  it  was  too 
dark,"  he  said;  "and,  anyway,  I'm  not  sure 
there  were  any." 

"Never  mind,"  was  the  cheerful  rejoinder. 
"We  have  enough  without  them,  and,  really, 
I  am  beginning  to  get  the  knack  of  the  pan- 

38 


In  the  Night 

bread.  If  you  don't  say  it  is  better  this 
evening — "  She  broke  off  suddenly.  He  had 
sat  down  by  the  fire  and  was  nursing  his 
knees  to  keep  them  from  knocking  together. 
"Why,  what  is  the  matter  with  you?  You 
are  as  pale  as  a  sheet." 

"I — I  stumbled  over  something  and  fell 
down,"  he  explained  hesitantly.  "It  wasn't 
much  of  a  fall,  but  it  seemed  to  shake  me  up 
a  good  bit.  I'll  be  all  right  in  a  minute  or 
two." 

"You  are  simply  tired  to  death,"  she  put 
in  sympathetically.  "The  long  tramp  this 
afternoon  was  too  much  for  you." 

Prime  resented  the  sympathy.  He  was 
not  willing  to  admit  that  he  could  not  endure 
as  much  as  she  could — as  much  as  any  mere 
woman  could. 

"I'm  not  especially  tired,"  he  denied;  and 
to  prove  it  he  began  to  eat  as  if  he  were 
hungry,  and  to  talk,  and  to  make  his  com- 
panion talk,  of  things  as  far  as  possible  re- 
moved from  the  sombre  heart  of  a  Canadian 
forest. 

Immediately  after  supper  he  began  to 
build  another  sleeping-shelter,  though  the 

39 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

young  woman  insisted  that  it  was  ridiculous 
for  him  to  feel  that  he  was  obliged  to  do  this 
at  every  fresh  stopping-place.  None  the 
less,  he  persevered,  partly  because  the  work 
relieved  him  of  the  necessity  of  trying  to 
keep  up  appearances.  Fortunately,  Miss 
Millington  confessed  herself  weary  enough 
to  go  to  bed  early,  and  after  she  left  him 
Prime  sat  before  the  fire,  smoking  the  dust 
out  of  his  tobacco-pouch  and  formulating 
his  plan  for  the  keeping  of  the  horrid  secret. 

The  plan  was  simple  enough,  asking  only 
for  time  and  a  sufficient  quantity — and 
quality — of  nerve.  When  he  could  be  sure 
that  his  camp-mate  was  safely  asleep  he 
would  go  back  to  the  glade  and  dispose  of 
the  two  dead  men  in  some  way  so  that  she 
would  never  know  of  their  existence  alive 
or  dead. 

The  waiting  proved  to  be  a  terrific  strain; 
the  more  so  since  the  conditions  were  strictly 
compelling.  The  chance  to  secure  the  owner- 
less and  well-stocked  canoe  was  by  no  means 
to  be  lost,  but  Prime  saw  difficulties  ahead. 
His  companion  would  wish  to  know  a  lot  of 
things  that  she  must  not  be  told,  and  he 

40 


In  the  Night 

was  well  assured  that  she  would  have  to  be 
convinced  of  their  right  to  take  the  canoe 
before  she  would  consent  to  be  an  accom- 
plice in  the  taking.  This  meant  delay,  which 
in  its  turn  rigidly  imposed  the  complete 
effacement  of  all  traces  of  the  tragedy.  He 
was  waiting  to  begin  the  effacement. 

By  the  time  his  tobacco  was  gone  he  was 
quivering  with  a  nervous  impatience  to  be 
up  and  at  it  and  have  it  over  with.  After 
the  crackling  fire  died  down  the  forest  silence 
was  unbroken.  The  young  woman  was 
asleep;  he  could  hear  her  regular  breath- 
ing. But  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe.  The 
moon  had  risen,  but  it  was  not  yet  high 
enough  to  pour  its  rays  into  the  tree-shel- 
tered glade,  and  without  its  light  to  aid  him 
the  horrible  thing  he  had  to  do  would  be 
still  more  horrible. 

It  was  nearly  midnight  when  he  got  up 
from  his  place  beside  the  whitening  embers 
of  the  camp-fire  and  pulled  himself  together 
for  the  grewsome  task.  Half-way  to  the 
glade  a  fit  of  trembling  seized  him  and  he 
had  to  sit  down  until  it  passed.  It  was  im- 
mensely humiliating,  and  he  lamented  the 

41 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

carefully  civilized  pre-existence  which  had 
left  him  so  helplessly  unable  to  cope  with 
the  primitive  and  the  unusual. 

When  he  reached  the  glade  and  the  big 
spruce  the  moon  was  shining  full  upon  the 
two  dead  men.  One  of  them  had  a  crook- 
ing arm  locked  around  the  neck  of  the  other. 
Prime's  gorge  rose  when  he  found  that  he 
had  to  strain  and  tug  to  break  the  arm-grip, 
and  he  had  a  creeping  shock  of  horror  when 
he  discovered  that  the  gripped  throat  had  a 
gaping  wound  through  which  the  man's  life 
had  fled.  In  the  body  of  the  other  man  he 
found  a"  retaliatory  knife,  buried  to  the  haft, 
and  it  took  all  his  strength  to  withdraw  it. 

With  these  unnerving  preliminaries  fairly 
over,  he  went  on  doggedly,  dragging  the 
bodies  one  at  a  time  to  the  river-brink. 
Selecting  the  quietest  of  the  eddies,  and 
making  sure  of  its  sufficient  depth  by  sound- 
ing with  a  broken  tree  limb,  he  began  a 
search  for  weighting-stones.  There  were  none 
on  the  river-bank,  and  he  had  to  go  back  to 
the  lake  shore  for  them,  carrying  them  an 
armful  at  a  time. 

The  weighting  process  kept  even  pace 
42 


In  the  Night 

with  the  other  ghastly  details.  The  men 
both  wore  the  belted  coats  of  the  northern 
guides,  and  he  first  tried  filling  the  pockets 
with  stones.  When  this  seemed  entirely 
inadequate  he  trudged  back  to  the  abandoned 
canoe  and  secured  a  pair  of  blankets  from 
its  lading.  Of  these  he  made  a  winding- 
sheet  for  each  of  the  dead  men,  wrapping 
the  stones  in  with  the  bodies,  and  making 
ail  fast  as  well  as  he  could  with  strings  fash- 
ioned from  strips  of  the  blanketing. 

All  this  took  time,  and  before  it  was 
finished,  with  the  two  stiffened  bodies  set- 
tling to  the  bottom  of  the  deep  pool,  Prime 
was  sick  and  shaken.  What  remained  to 
be  done  was  less  distressing.  Going  back 
to  the  glade  he  searched  until  he  found  the 
other  hunting-knife.  Also,  in  groping  under 
the  murder  tree  he  found  a  small  buckskin 
sack  filled  with  coins.  A  lighted  match 
showed  him  the  contents — a  handful  of 
bright  English  sovereigns.  The  inference 
was  plain;  the  two  men  had  fought  for  the 
possession  of  the  gold,  and  both  had  lost. 

Prime  went  back  to  the  river  and,  kneel- 
ing at  the  water's  edge,  scoured  the  two 

43 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

knives  with  sand  to  remove  the  blood-stains. 
That  done,  and  the  knives  well  hidden  in 
the  bow  of  the  canoe,  he  made  another 
journey  to  the  glade  and  carefully  scattered 
the  ashes  of  the  five  fires. 

Owing  to  the  civilized  pre-existence,  he 
was  fagged  and  weary  to  the  point  of  col- 
lapse when  he  finally  returned  to  the  camp- 
fire  on  the  lake  beach  and  flung  himself 
down  beside  it  to  sleep.  But  for  long  hours 
sleep  would  not  come,  and  when  it  did  come 
it  was  little  better  than  a  succession  of 
hideous  nightmares  in  which  two  dark-faced 
men  were  reproachfully  throttling  him  and 
dragging  him  down  into  the  bottomless 
depths  of  the  outlet  river. 


44 


A    SECRET   FOR   ONE 

PRIME  awoke  unrefreshed  at  the  moment 
when  the  morning  sun  was  beginning  to  gild 
the  tops  of  the  highest  trees,  to  find  his  camp- 
mate  up  and  busying  herself  housewifely 
over  the  breakfast  fire. 

"You  looked  so  utterly  tired  and  worn 
out  I  thought  I'd  let  you  sleep  as  long  as 
you  could,"  she  offered.  "Are  you  feeling 
any  better  this  morning?" 

"I'm  not  sick,"  he  protested,  wincing  a 
little  in  spite  of  himself  in  deference  to  the 
stiffened  thews  and  sinews. 

"You  mustn't  be,"  she  argued  cheerfully. 
"To-day  is  the  day  when  we  must  go  back 
a  few  thousand  years  and  become  Stone- 
Age  people." 

"Meaning  that  the  provisions  will  be 
gone?" 

"Yes." 

"There  are  rabbits,"  he  asserted.  "I  saw 
45 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

two  of  them  yesterday.  Does  the  domestic- 
science  course  include  the  cooking  of  rabbits 
au  voyageur?" 

"It  is  going  to  include  the  cooking  of  any- 
thing we  can  find  to  cook.  Does  the  literary 
course  include  the  catching  of  rabbits  with 
one's  bare  hands  ? " 

"It  includes  an  imagination  which  is 
better  than  the  possession  of  many  traps 
and  weapons,"  he  jested.  "I  feel  it  in  my 
bones  that  we  are  not  going  to  starve/' 

"Let  us  be  thankful  to  your  bones,"  she 
returned  gayly,  and  at  this  Prime  felt  the 
grisly  night  and  its  horrors  withdrawing  a 
little  way. 

There  was  more  of  the  cheerful  badinage 
to  enliven  the  scanty  breakfast,  but  there 
was  pathos  in  the  air  when  Prime  felt  for 
his  cigarette-papers  and  mechanically  opened 
his  empty  tobacco-pouch. 

"You  poor  man!"  she  cooed,  pitying  him. 
"What  will  you  do  now  ?" 

Prime  had  a  thought  which  was  only 
partly  regretful.  He  might  have  searched 
in  the  pockets  of  the  dead  men  for  more 
tobacco,  but  it  had  not  occurred  to  him  at 

46 


A  Secret  for  One 

the  time.  He  dismissed  the  thought  and 
came  back  to  the  playing  of  his  part  in  the 
secret  for  one. 

"The  lack  of  tobacco  is  a  small  considera- 
tion, when  there  is  so  much  else  at  stake," 
he  maintained.  "If  the  Grider  guess  is  the 
right  one,  it  is  evident  that  something  has 
turned  up  to  tangle  it.  Unscrupulous  as  he 
is  in  the  matter  of  idiotic  jokes,  I  know  him 
well  enough  to  be  sure  that  he  wouldn't 
leave  us  here  to  famish.  He  is  only  an 
amateur  aviator,  and  it  is  quite  within  the 
possibilities  that  he  has  wrecked  himself 
somewhere.  It  seems  to  me  that  we  ought 
to  take  this  river  for  a  guide  and  push  on  for 
ourselves.  Doesn't  it  appeal  that  way  to 
you  ?" 

"If  we  only  had  a  boat  of  some  kind," 
she  sighed.  "But  even  then  we  couldn't 
push  very  far  without  something  to  eat." 

It  was  time  to  usher  in  the  glad  surprise, 
and  Prime  began  to  gather  up  the  breakfast 
leavings.  "We'll  go  over  and  have  a  look  at 
the  river,  anyway,"  he  suggested,  and  a  few 
minutes  later  he  had  led  the  way  across  the 
point  of  land,  and  had  heard  the  young 

47 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

woman's  cry  of  delight  and  relief  when  she 
discovered  the  stranded  canoe. 

"You  knew  about  this  all  the  time/*  was 
her  reproachful  accusation.  "You  were  over 
here  last  night.  That  is  why  you  had  the 
prophetic  bones  a  little  while  ago.  Why 
didn't  you  tell  me  before  ?" 

He  grinned.  "At  the  moment  you  seemed 
cheerful  enough  without  the  addition  of  the 
good  news.  Do  you  know  what  is  in  that 
canoe?" 

"No." 

"Things  to  eat,"  he  avouched  solemnly; 
"lots  of  them!  More  than  we  could  eat  in 
a  month." 

"But  they  are  not  ours,"  she  objected. 

"No  matter;  we  are  going  to  eat  them 
just  the  same." 

"You  mean  that  we  can  hire  the  owners 
to  take  us  out  of  this  wilderness  ?  Have 
you  any  money  ? " 

"Plenty  of  it,"  he  boasted,  chinking  the 
buckskin  bag  in  his  pocket,  the  finding  of  which 
he  had,  up  to  this  moment,  entirely  forgotten. 

"  But  where  are  the  owners  ?  I  don't  see 
any  camp." 

48 


A  Secret  for  One 

"That  is  one  reason  why  I  didn't  tell  you 
last  night.  I  found  the  canoe,  but  I  didn't 
find  anything  that  looked — er — like  a  camp." 

"Then  we  shall  have  to  sit  down  patiently 
and  wait  until  they  come  back.  They 
wouldn't  go  very  far  away  and  leave  a  loaded 
canoe  alone  like  this,  would  they?" 

Prime  gave  a  furtive  side  glance  at  the 
shadowy  pool  in  the  eddy.  Truly  the  canoe- 
owners  had  not  gone  very  far,  but  it  was 
quite  far  enough.  If  he  could  have  framed 
any  reasonable  excuse  for  it,  he  would  have 
urged  the  immediate  borrowing  of  the  canoe, 
and  an  equally  immediate  departure  from  the 
spot  of  grisly  associations.  Indeed,  he  did 
go  so  far  as  to  suggest  it,  and  was  brought 
up  standing,  as  he  more  than  half  expected 
to  be,  against  Miss  Millington's  conscience. 

"Why,  certainly  we  couldn't  do  anything 
like  that!"  she  protested.  "It  would  be 
highway  robbery !  We  must  wait  until  they 
return.  Surely  they  won't  be  gone  very 
long." 

There  was  no  help  for  it  except  in  telling 
her  the  shocking  truth,  and  Prime  was  not 
equal  to  that.  So  he  reconciled  himself  as 

49 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

best  he  could  to  the  enforced  delay,  hoping 
that  the  tender  conscience  would  not  demand 
too  much  time. 

Almost  at  once  the  owner  of  the  con- 
science suggested  that  they  make  a  round 
through  the  adjoining  forest  in  an  attempt 
to  discover  the  camp  of  the  missing  men. 
Prime  acceded  cheerfully  enough,  though  he 
was  impatient  to  examine  the  canoe-load, 
in  which  he  was  hoping  there  might  prove 
to  be  a  supply  of  tobacco.  For  the  better 
part  of  the  forenoon  they  quartered  the 
forest  around  and  about  between  the  river 
and  the  lake  in  widening  circles,  missing 
nothing  but  the  glade  of  horrors,  which 
Prime  took  good  care  to  avoid.  At  noon 
they  came  back  to  the  canoe-landing  and 
made  a  frugal  meal  on  the  remains  of  their 
own  store  of  food. 

"We  are  too  punctiliously  foolish,"  Prime 
declared  when  the  second  meal  without  its 
tobacco  aftermath  had  been  endured.  "You 
say  we  are  obliged  to  wait,  and  in  that  case 
we  shall  have  to  borrow,  sooner  or  later.  I 
don't  see  any  reason  why  we  shouldn't  begin 
it  now.  We  can  explain  everything,  you 

So 


A  Secret  for  One 

know;  and,  besides,  I  have  money  with 
which  to  pay  for  what  we  take." 

"But  your  money  isn't  Canadian  money," 
was  the  ready  objection  voiced  by  the  tender 
conscience. 

Prime's  laugh  did  not  ring  quite  true. 
"That  is  where  you  are  mistaken,"  he  re- 
torted. "It  is  good  English  gold,  in  sover- 
eigns." 

If  the  young  woman  were  surprised  to 
learn  that  a  man  who  had  expected  to  motor 
out  of  Canada  in  a  day  or  two  at  the  most 
had  supplied  himself  with  a  stock  of  English 
sovereigns,  she  did  not  question  the  fact. 
But  for  fear  she  might,  Prime  went  on 
hastily: 

"I  always  like  to  be  prepared  for  all  kinds 
of  emergencies  when  I  leave  home,  and  this 
time  I  wasn't  sure  just  where  I  was  going 
to  bring  up,  you  know — after  Grider  had 
changed  his  mind  as  to  our  starting-point." 

The  evasion  served  its  purpose,  and  the 
young  woman  assented  to  an  immediate 
examination  of  the  canoe-load.  Prime  helped 
her  down  the  steep  bank,  and  they  began  to 
rummage,  spreading  their  findings  out  on 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

the  little  beach.  As  Prime  had  intimated, 
there  was  a  liberal  stock  of  provisions — 
jerked  deer-meat,  smoke-cured  bacon,  flour, 
meal,  salt,  baking-powder,  tea,  and  sugar, 
but  no  coffee,  a  few  tins  of  vegetables,  a 
small  sack  of  potatoes,  and,  last  but  not 
least,  a  canvas-covered  mass  of  something 
which  they  decided  was  pemmican. 

Rummaging  further,  the  precious  tobacco 
came  to  light — two  huge  twists  of  it  hidden 
in  the  centre  of  one  of  the  two  remaining 
blanket-rolls.  Prime  stopped  right  where  he 
was,  crumbled  a  bit  of  the  dried  leaf  in  his 
hands,  and  made  a  cigarette,  his  companion 
looking  on  with  a  little  lip-curl  which  might 
have  been  of  derision  or  merely  of  amuse- 
ment. 

"Is  it  good?"  she  asked,  when  he  had 
inhaled  the  first  deep  breath. 

"It's  vile!"  he  returned.  "At  the  same 
time,  it  is  so  much  better  than  nothing  that 
I  could  do  a  Highland  fling  for  pure  joy. 
Take  my  advice,  Miss  Millington,  and  never 
become  a  slave  to  the  tobacco  habit." 

"'Miss  Millington/"  she  repeated,  half 
musingly.  "Doesn't  that  strike  you  as  being 

52 


'Is  it  good?"  she  asked,  when  he  had  inhaled  the  first 
deep  breath. 


A  Secret  for  One 

a  trifle  absurd  at  this  distance  from  a  draw- 
ing-room ? " 

"It  surely  does,"  he  admitted  frankly; 
"and  so,  for  that  matter,  does  'Mr.  Prime.' ' 

She  looked  up  at  him  with  a  charming 
little  grimace. 

"I'll  concede  the  'Lucetta'  if  you  will 
concede  the  *  Donald/  ' 

"It's  a  go,"  he  laughed.  "It  is  the  last 
of  the  conventions,  and  we'll  tell  it  good-by 
without  a  whimper."  With  the  goodly  array 
of  foodstuff  spread  out  upon  the  sand,  and 
with  his  back  carefully  turned  upon  the 
pool  of  dread,  he  felt  that  he  could  afford 
to  be  light-hearted. 

There  was  only  a  little  more  of  the  rum- 
maging to  be  done.  A  canvas-covered  roll 
unlashed  from  its  place  beneath  a  canoe- 
stay  proved  to  be  a  square  of  duck  large 
enough  to  make  a  small  sleeping-tent.  In- 
side of  this  roll  there  was  an  ample  stock  of 
cartridges  for  the  two  repeating  rifles  lying 
cased  in  their  canvas  covers  in  the  bottom 
of  the  boat,  and  an  Indian-tanned  deerskin 
used  as  a  wrapping  for  the  ammunition. 
With  the  guns  there  was  a  serviceable  woods- 

53 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

man's  axe.  In  the  bow,  where  Prime  had 
dropped  the  two  savage-looking  hunting- 
knives,  there  were  a  few  utensils:  a  teapot, 
a  camper's  skillet  large  enough  to  be  worth 
while,  tin  cup  and  plates,  an  empty  whiskey- 
bottle,  and  a  basin — the  latter  presumably 
for  the  dough-mixing. 

After  they  had  their  findings  lying  on  the 
sand  the  tender  conscience  came  in  play 
again,  and  nothing  would  do  but  everything 
must  be  put  back  just  as  they  had  found  it, 
Prime  drawing  the  line,  however,  at  a  portion 
of  the  tobacco  and  enough  of  the  food  to  serve 
for  supper  and  breakfast.  During  the  re- 
mainder of  the  afternoon  they  left  the  canoe- 
load  undisturbed,  but  when  evening  came 
Prime  borrowed  the  basin,  the  cups,  plates, 
and  the  larger  skillet.  Farther  along  he 
borrowed  the  canvas  roll  and  the  axe  and 
set  up  the  tiny  sleeping-tent,  placing  it  so 
that  Lucetta,  if  she  were  so  minded,  could 
see  the  fire. 

Just  before  she  retired  the  young  woman 
made  a  generous  protest. 

"You  mustn't  do  all  the  borrowing  for 
me,"  she  insisted.  "Go  right  down  there 

54 


A  Secret  for  One 

and  get  one  of  those  blanket-rolls  for  your- 
self. I  shan't  sleep  a  wink  if  you  don't/' 

The  next  morning  there  were  more  specu- 
lations, on  the  young  woman's  part,  as  to 
the  whereabouts  of  the  canoe-owners,  with 
much  wonderment  at  their  protracted  ab- 
sence and  the  singular  abandonment  of  their 
entire  outfit,  even  to  the  weapons.  Whereat 
Prime  invented  all  sorts  of  theories  to  account 
for  this  curious  state  of  affairs,  all  of  them 
much  more  ingenious  than  plausible. 

For  himself,  the  mystery  was  scarcely 
less  unexplainable.  Why  two  men,  evidently 
outfitted  for  a  long  journey,  should  stop  by 
the  way,  build  five  fires  that  were  plainly 
not  camp-fires,  and  then  fall  to  and  fight 
each  other  to  death  over  a  bag  of  English 
sovereigns,  were  puzzles  that  he  did  not  at- 
tempt to  solve  in  his  own  behalf.  It  was 
enough  that  the  facts  had  befallen,  and  that 
the  net  result  for  a  pair  of  helpless  castaways 
was  a  well-stocked  canoe  which  Lucetta's 
acid-proof  honesty  was  still  preventing  them 
from  appropriating. 

After  a  breakfast  served  with  the  garnish- 
ings  afforded  by  the  Heaven-sent  supplies, 

55 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

Prime  uncased  the  two  rifles  and  looked  them 
over.  They  were  United  States  products 
of  an  early  edition,  but  were  apparently 
serviceable  and  in  good  order.  In  the  canvas 
case  of  one  of  the  guns  there  was  a  packet 
of  fish-lines  and  hooks.  At  Lucetta's  sug- 
gestion a  few  shots  were  fired  as  a  signal  for 
the  lost  canoe-owners.  Nothing  coming  of 
this,  they  tried  a  little  target  practice,  select- 
ing the  largest  tree  in  sight  for  a  mark,  and 
both  missing  it  with  monotonous  regularity. 
Later  in  the  day  Prime  brought  the  talk 
around  by  degrees  to  the  expediencies.  How 
much  of  the  present  good  weather  must  they 
waste  in  waiting  for  the  hypothetical  return 
of  the  absentees  ?  Perhaps  some  accident 
had  happened;  perhaps  the  absentees  would 
never  turn  up.  Who  could  tell  ? 

Domestic  Science,  with  gymnasium-teach- 
ing on  the  side,  fought  the  suggestion  to 
which  all  this  pointed.  They  had  no  manner 
of  right  to  take  the  canoe  and  its  belongings 
without  the  consent  of  the  owners.  What 
was  the  hurry  ?  By  waiting  they  would  be 
sure  to  obtain  the  help  they  were  needing, 
and  another  day  or  two  must  certainly  end 
the  suspense. 

56 


A  Secret  for  One 

Prime  went  as  far  as  he  could  without 
telling  the  shocking  truth.  With  the  dead 
men's  pool  so  near  at  hand  he  was  shudder- 
ingly  anxious  to  be  gone,  but  the  young 
woman's  logic  was  unanswerable  and  the 
delay  was  extended.  A  single  small  advance 
marked  this  second  day.  Along  toward 
evening  Prime  unloaded  the  canoe,  and  to- 
gether they  made  a  few  heroic  attempts  to 
acquire  the  art  of  paddling.  It  was  ap- 
parently a  lost  art  so  far  as  they  were  con- 
cerned. The  big  birch-bark,  lightened  of  its 
load,  did  everything  but  what  it  was  expected 
to  do,  yawing  and  careening  under  the  un- 
skilful handling  in  a  most  disconcerting 
manner. 

"If  I  could  only  rig  up  some  way  to  row 
the  thing!"  Prime  exclaimed,  when  they  had 
contrived  to  drift  and  seesaw  half  a  mile  or 
more  down  the  almost  currentless  first  reach 
of  the  stream. 

"You  couldn't,"  asserted  the  more  prac- 
tical young  woman.  "The  sides  are  as  thin 
as  paper,  and  they  wouldn't  hold  rowlocks 
if  you  could  make  them.  Besides,  who  ever 
heard  of  rowing  a  birch-bark  canoe  ?" 

"Somebody  will  hear  of  it,  if  I  ever  live 
57 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

to  work  this  vacation  trip  of  ours  into  a 
story —  No,  no;  paddle  the  other  way !  We 
want  to  turn  around  and  go  back!" 

They  got  the  hang  of  it  a  little  better  after 
a  while,  the  young  woman  catching  the 
knack  first;  and  after  much  labor  they  won 
back  to  their  camping-place  on  the  small 
peninsula.  Over  the  evening  fire  Prime  un- 
wrapped the  deerskin  they  had  found  in  the 
canvas-roll. 

"We  shall  have  to  have  moccasins  of  some 
sort,"  he  announced.  "That  flimsy  boat 
isn't  going  to  stand  for  shoes  with  heels  on 
them.  Does  domestic  science  include  a 
semester  in  shoemaking  ?  I  can  assure  you 
in  advance  that  literature  doesn't." 

Lucetta  took  the  leather  and  sat  for  a 
time  regarding  it  thoughtfully.  "No  needle, 
no  thread,  no  pattern,"  she  mused.  "And 
if  we  cut  it  and  spoil  it  there  won't  be  enough 
left  for  two  pairs." 

"If  you  have  an  idea,  try  it;  I'll  stand  the 
expense  of  the  leather,"  chuckled  Prime, 
with  large  liberality. 

But  now  the  young  woman  was  hesitating 
on  another  score. 

58 


A  Secret  for  One 

"This  leather  belongs  to  the  owners  of 
the  canoe;  I  don't  know  that  we  have  any 
right  to  cut  it,"  she  objected. 

Prime  was  tempted  to  say  things  objurga- 
tory of  these  phantom  owners  who  would  not 
down,  but  he  didn't.  Every  fresh  reference 
to  the  two  dead  men  gave  him  an  impulse  to 
glance  over  his  shoulder  at  the  silent  pool  in 
the  eddy,  and  the  longer  the  thing  went  on 
the  less  able  he  was  to  control  the  prompting. 

"You  forget  that  we  are  able  to  pay  for 
all  damages,"  was  what  he  really  did  say, 
and  at  that  the  young  woman  removed  a 
shoe,  placed  a  neatly  stockinged  foot  on  the 
skin  and  marked  around  it  with  a  bit  of  char- 
coal taken  from  the  fire,  leaving  a  generous 
margin.  Borrowing  Prime's  pocket-knife  she 
cut  to  the  line,  made  tiny  buttonholes  all 
around  the  piece,  and  threaded  them  with  a 
drawing-string  made  of  the  soft  leather. 

"You've  got  it!"  exclaimed  the  unskilled 
one  in  open-eyed  admiration,  after  the  one- 
piece  slipper  was  fashioned  and  tried  on. 
"You  are  a  wonder!  I  shouldn't  have 
thought  of  that  in  a  month  of  Sundays. 
It's  capital!" 

59 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

There  was  enough  material  in  the  single 
skin  to  make  the  two  pairs,  with  something 
left  over,  and  Prime  put  his  on  at  once  with 
a  sigh  of  relief  born  of  the  grateful  chance 
to  get  rid  of  the  civilized  shoes.  Past  that 
there  was  more  talk  about  the  ever-thick- 
ening mysteries,  and  again  Lucetta  refused 
to  accept  the  Grider  explanation,  while  Prime 
clung  to  it  simply  because  he  could  not  in- 
vent any  other.  Yet  it  was  borne  in  upon 
him  that  the  mystery  was  edging  away  from 
the  Grider  hypothesis  in  spite  of  all  he  could 
do.  There  was  nothing  to  connect  the  two 
canoemen,  fighting  over  the  purse  of  gold, 
with  Grider,  or  with  the  abduction  of  a 
school-teacher  and  a  writer  of  stories;  yet 
there  were  pointings  here,  too,  if  one  might 
read  them.  Why  were  the  five  fires  lighted 
in  the  glade  unless  it  were  for  a  signal  of 
some  sort  ?  Prime  wished  from  the  bottom 
of  his  heart  that  he  could  set  the  keen  men- 
tality of  his  companion  at  work  on  this  latest 
phase  of  the  mystery,  but  with  the  dead  men 
lying  stiff  and  still  at  the  bottom  of  their 
pool  less  than  a  stone's  throw  away,  his 
courage  failed  him  and  his  lips  were  sealed. 

60 


VI 

CANOEDLINGS 

ON  the  fifth  morning — their  third  at  the 
peninsula  camp — Prime  registered  a  solemn 
vow  to  make  this  the  last  day  of  the  entirely 
unnecessary  delay.  More  and  more  he  was 
tormented  by  the  fear  that  the  dead  men 
might  escape  from  their  weightings  and  rise 
to  become  a  menace  to  Lucetta's  sanity  or 
his  own;  and,  though  he  had  been  given  the 
best  possible  proof  that  his  companion  was 
above  reproach  in  the  matter  of  calm  courage 
and  freedom  from  hysteria,  he  meant  to  take 
no  chances — for  her  or  for  himself. 

At  his  suggestion  they  began  the  day  by 
making  another  essay  at  the  paddling,  em- 
barking in  the  emptied  canoe  shortly  after 
breakfast.  Gaming  a  little  facility  after  an 
hour  or  so,  they  headed  the  birch-bark  down- 
stream past  the  point  which  they  had  reached 
the  previous  afternoon,  and  soon  found  them- 
selves in  a  quickening  current.  Prime,  kneel- 
ing in  the  bow,  gave  the  word,  and  Lucetta 
obeyed  it. 

61 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"We'll  try  the  quick  water,"  he  flung 
back  to  her.  "We'll  have  to  have  the  experi- 
ence, and  we  had  better  get  it  with  the  empty 
canoe,  rather  than  with  the  load." 

This  seemed  logical,  but  it  led  to  results. 
In  a  short  time  the  shores  grew  rocky  and 
there  was  no  safe  place  to  land.  Moreover, 
the  little  river  was  now  running  so  swiftly  that 
they  were  afraid  to  try  to  turn  around. 
Rapid  after  rapid  was  passed  in  vain 
struggles  to  stop  the  triumphal  progress, 
and  if  the  canoe's  lading  had  been  aboard, 
Prime  would  have  been  entirely  happy,  since 
every  rapid  they  shot  was  taking  them  farther 
away  from  the  scene  of  the  tragedy.  But 
the  lading  was  not  aboard. 

"We've  got  to  do  something  to  head  off 
this  runaway!"  the  bowman  shouted  back 
over  his  shoulder  in  one  of  the  quieter  race- 
ways. "We're  leaving  our  commissary  be- 
hind." 

"Anything  you  say,"  chimed  in  the  steers- 
woman  from  the  stern  of  the  dancing  run- 
away. "My  knees  are  getting  awfully  tired, 
but  I  can  stand  it  as  long  as  you  can." 

"That  is  the  trouble,"  Prime  called  back. 
62 


Canoedlings 

"We're  staying  with  it  too  long.  The  next 
pool  we  come  to,  you  paddle  like  mad,  all 
on  one  side,  and  I'll  do  the  same.  We've 
simply  got  to  turn  around  !" 

The  manoeuvre  worked  like  a  charm.  A 
succession  of  the  eddy-pools  came  rushing 
up  from  down-stream,  and  in  the  third  of 
them  they  contrived  to  get  the  birch-bark 
reversed  and  pointed  up-stream.  Then  it 
suddenly  occurred  to  the  young  woman  that 
they  had  had  their  trouble  for  nothing;  that 
the  same  end  might  have  been  gained  if  they 
had  merely  turned  themselves  around  and 
faced  the  other  way.  Her  shriek  of  laughter 
made  Prime  stop  paddling  for  the  moment. 

"I  need  a  guardian — we  both  need  guard- 
ians !"  he  snorted,  when  she  told  him  what 
she  was  laughing  at,  and  then  they  dug  their 
paddles  in  a  frantic  effort  to  stem  the  swift 
current. 

It  was  no  go — less  than  no  go.  In  spite 
of  all  they  could  do  the  birch-bark  refused 
to  be  driven  up-stream.  What  was  worse, 
it  began  to  drift  backward,  slowly  at  first, 
but  presently  at  a  pace  which  made  them 
quickly  turn  to  face  the  other  way  lest  they 

63 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

be  smashed  in  a  rapid.  A  mile  or  more  fled 
to  the  rear  before  they  could  take  breath, 
and  two  more  rapids  were  passed,  up  which 
Prime  knew  they  could  never  force  the  canoe 
with  any  skill  they  possessed  or  were  likely 
to  acquire. 

Taking  advantage  of  the  next  lull  in  the 
unmanageable  flight,  he  shouted  again. 

"We'll  have  to  go  ashore !  We  are  getting 
so  far  away  now  that  we  shall  never  get  back. 
You're  steering:  try  it  in  the  next  quiet  place 
we  come  to,  and  I'll  do  all  I  can  to  help." 

The  "next  quiet  place"  proved  to  be  a 
full  half-mile  farther  along,  and  they  had  a 
dozen  hairbreadth  escapes  in  more  of  the 
quick  stretches  before  they  reached  it.  Prime 
lived  years  in  moments  in  the  swifter  rushes. 
Knowing  his  own  helplessness  in  the  water, 
he  was  in  deadly  fear  of  a  capsize,  not  from 
any  unmanly  dread  of  death  but  because  he 
had  a  vivid  and  unnerving  picture  of  Lucetta's 
predicament  if  she  should  escape  and  be  left 
alone  and  helpless  in  the  heart  of  the  forest 
wilderness.  He  drew  his  first  good  breath 
after  the  runaway  canoe  had  been  safely 
beached  on  the  shore  of  an  eddy  and  they 

64 


Canoedlings 

had  tottered  carefully  out  of  it  to  drag  it 
still  higher  upon  the  shelving  bank. 

"My  heavens!"  he  panted,  throwing  him- 
self down  to  gasp  at  leisure.  "I  wouldn't 
go  through  that  again  for  a  farm  in  Paradise  ! 
Weren't  you  scared  stiff  ? " 

"I  certainly  was,"  was  the  frank  ad- 
mission. The  young  woman  had  taken  her 
characteristic  attitude,  sitting  down  with 
her  chin  propped  in  her  hands. 

"But,  just  the  same,  you  didn't  forget  to 
paddle!"  Prime  exulted.  "You  are  a  com- 
rade, right,  Lucetta !  It's  a  thousand  pities 
you  aren't  a  man  ! " 

"Isn't  it?"  she  murmured,  without  turn- 
ing her  head. 

"Do  you  know — I  was  simply  paralyzed 
at  the  thought  of  what  would  happen  if  we 
should  upset — not  so  much  at  the  thought  of 
what  would  be  certain  to  happen  to  me, 
but  on  your  account." 

"The  protective  instinct,"  she  remarked; 
"it  is  like  a  good  many  other  things  which 
we  have  outgrown — or  are  outgrowing — quite 
useless,  but  stubbornly  persistent." 

"You  mean  that  you  don't  need  it  ?" 
65 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"I  haven't  needed  it  yet,  have  I  ?" 

"No,"  he  admitted  soberly.  "So  far, 
you  have  had  the  nerve,  and  more  than 
your  share  of  the  physique." 

"I  have  had  better  training,  perhaps," 
she  offered,  as  if  willing  to  make  it  easier  for 
him.  "A  little  farther  along  you  will  begin 
to  develop,  while  I  shall  stand  still." 

But  Prime  would  not  let  it  rest  at  that. 

"I  have  always  maintained  'that  most 
women  have  a  finer  nerve,  and  finer  courage, 
than  most  men;  I  am  speaking  now  of  the 
civilized  average.  You  are  proving  my  theory, 
and  I  owe  you  something.  But  to  get  back 
to  things  present;  doesn't  it  occur  to  you 
that  we  have  gotten  ourselves  into  a  rather 
awkward  mess  ? " 

"It  does,  indeed.  We  must  be  miles  from 
anything  to  eat,  and  if  you  know  of  any  way 
to  take  this  canoe  up-stream  I  wish  you 
would  tell  me;  I  don't." 

"It  will  be  by  main  strength  and  awk- 
wardness, as  the  Irishman  played  the  cornet, 
if  we  do  it  at  all,"  Prime  decided. 

"And    if,    in   the   meantime,    the   owners 

come  back  and  find  it  gone " 

66 


Canoedlings 

Prime  got  up  stiffly.  "I  have  a  feeling 
that  they  haven't  come  back  yet,  and  it  is 
growing  fast  into  a  feeling  that  they  are  not 
going  to  come  back  at  all.  Shall  we  try  a 
towing  stunt  ?" 

They  tried  it,  though  they  had  no  tow- 
line  and  were  reduced  to  the  necessity  of 
dragging  the  canoe  along  in  the  shallows, 
each  with  a  hand  on  the  gunwale.  This 
did  not  answer  very  well,  and  after  fighting 
for  a  half-hour  in  the  first  of  the  rapids  and 
getting  thoroughly  wet  and  bedraggled  they 
had  to  give  it  up  and  reverse  the  process, 
letting  the  birch-bark  drift  down  to  the  safe 
dockage  again. 

While  they  were  resting  from  their  labors, 
and  the  hampered  half  of  the  towing  squad 
was  wringing  the  water  from  her  skirts, 
Prime  looked  at  his  watch. 

"Heavens  and  earth!"  he  exclaimed.  "It 
is  noon  already !  I  thought  I  was  beginning 
to  feel  that  way  inside.  Why  didn't  we  have 
sense  enough  to  take  a  bite  along  with  us 
when  we  left  camp  this  morning?" 

"Oh,  if  you  are  going  into  the  whys,  why 
didn't  we  have  sense  enough  to  know  that 

67 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

we  couldn't  handle  the  canoe  ?  How  far 
have  we  come  ? " 

Prime  shook  his  head.  "You  couldn't 
prove  it  by  me.  A  part  of  the  time  it  seemed 
to  me  that  we  were  bettering  a  mile  a  min- 
ute." He  got  up  and  hobbled  back  and  forth 
on  the  little  beach  to  work  the  canoe-cramp 
out  of  his  knees.  "It  looks  to  me  as  if  we 
are  up  against  it  good  and  hard;  the  canoe  is 
here,  and  the  dunnage  is  up  yonder.  Which 
do  we  do:  carry  the  canoe  to  the  dunnage, 
or  the  dunnage  to  the  canoe  ?  It's  a  heavenly 
choice  either  way  around.  What  do  you  say  ?" 

Lucetta  voted  at  once  for  the  canoe-carry- 
ing, if  it  were  at  all  possible.  So  much,  she 
said,  they  owed  to  the  owners,  who  had 
every  right  to  expect  to  find  their  property 
where  they  had  left  it.  Again  Prime  was 
tempted  to  say  hard  things  about  the  ghosts 
which  so  stubbornly  refused  to  be  laid,  and 
again  he  denied  himself. 

"The  canoe  it  is,"  he  responded  grimly, 
but  by  the  time  they  had  dragged  the  light 
but  unwieldy  craft  out  of  the  water  and  part 
way  up  the  bank  they  were  convinced  that 
the  other  alternative  was  the  only  one.  A 

68 


Canoedlings 

short  portage  they  might  have  made,  or  pos- 
sibly a  long  one,  if  they  had  known  enough 
to  turn  the  birch-bark  bottom-side  up  and 
carry  it  on  their  heads  voyageur-fashion.  But 
they  still  had  this  to  learn. 

"It's  a  frost,"  was  Prime's  decision  after 
they  had  tugged  and  stumbled  a  little  way 
with  the  clumsy  burden  knocking  at  their 
legs.  "The  mountain  won't  go  to  Mo- 
hammed— that  much  is  perfectly  plain.  Are 
you  game  for  a  long  portage  with  the  camp 
outfit  ?  It  seems  to  be  the  only  thing  there 
is  left  for  us  to  do." 

The  young  woman  was  game,  and  since 
they  were  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  river 
they  put  the  canoe  into  the  water  again  and 
paddled  to  the  other  side,  leaving  the  birch- 
bark  drawn  out  upon  the  bank  of  the  eddy- 
pool.  From  that  they  went  on,  hunger 
urging  them  and  the  water-softened  moccasins 
holding  them  back  and  making  them  pick 
their  way  like  children  in  the  first  few  days 
of  the  barefoot  season.  The  distance  proved 
to  be  about  three  miles  and  they  made  it 
in  something  over  an  hour.  The  embers  of 
their  morning  fire  were  still  alive,  and  the 

69 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

belated  midday  meal  was  quickly  cooked 
and  despatched. 

"Now  for  the  hard  part  of  it,"  Prime  an- 
nounced, as  he  began  to  pack  the  camp 
outfit.  "You  sit  right  still  and  rest,  and 
I'll  get  things  ready  for  the  tote." 

"Then  you  have  determined  to  ride  rough- 
shod over  the  rights  of  the  people  who  own 
the  things  ?"  the  young  woman  asked. 

Prime  turned  his  back  deliberately  upon 
the  pool  of  dread. 

"Necessity  knows  no  law,  and  we  can't 
stay  here  forever  waiting  for  something  to 
turn  up.  Somebody  has  given  us  a  strong- 
hand  deal,  for  what  reason  God  only  knows, 
and  we've  got  to  fight  out  of  it  the  best  way 
we  can.  We'll  take  these  things,  and  we  are 
willing  to  pay  for  them  if  anybody  should 
ask  us  to;  but  in  any  event  we  are  going  to 
take  them,  because  it  is  a  matter  of  life  and 
death  to  us.  I'll  shoulder  all  the  respon- 
sibility, moral  and  otherwise." 

She  laughed  a  little   at  this.     "More  of 

the  protective  instinct  ?     I  can't  allow  that 

—my  conscience  is  my  own.     But  I  suppose 

you   are   right.     There   doesn't   seem  to  be 


Canoedlings 

anything  else  to  do.  And  you  needn't  fit 
all  of  those  packs  to  your  own  back;  I  pro- 
pose to  carry  my  share." 

He  protested  at  that,  and  learned  one 
more  thing  about  Lucetta  Millington:  up 
to  a  certain  point  she  was  as  docile  and  lead- 
able  as  the  woman  of  the  Stone  Age  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been,  and  beyond  that  she 
was  adamant. 

"You  said  a  little  while  ago  it  was  a  pity 
I  wasn't  a  man:  it  is  the  woman's  part  now- 
adays to  ask  no  odds.  Will  you  try  to  re- 
member that  ? " 

Here  was  a  hint  of  a  brand-new  Lucetta, 
and  Prime  wondered  how  he  had  contrived 
to  live  twenty-eight  years  in  a  world  of 
women  only  to  be  brought  in  contact  for 
the  first  time  with  the  real,  simon-pure 
article  in  the  heart  of  a  Canadian  wilderness. 
Nevertheless  he  took  her  at  her  word  and 
made  a  small  pack  for  her,  with  a  carrying- 
strap  cut  from  the  remains  of  the  deerskin. 
At  the  very  best  the  portage  promised  to 
demand  three  trips,  which  was  appalling. 

It  was  well  past  the  middle  of  the  after- 
noon when  they  reached  the  canoe  at  the 

71 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

end  of  the  first  carry.  The  three-mile  trudge 
had  been  made  in  silence,  neither  of  the 
amateur  carriers  having  breath  to  spare  for 
talk.  Since  they  had  the  tent  and  one  of 
the  blanket-rolls  and  sufficient  food,  Prime 
was  for  putting  off  the  remaining  double 
carry  to  another  day,  but  again  Lucetta 
was  adamant. 

"If  we  do  that  we  shall  lose  all  day  to- 
morrow," was  the  form  her  protest  took; 
"and  now  that  we  have  started  we  had 
better  keep  on  going." 

"Oh,  what  is  the  frantic  hurry?"  Prime 
cut  in.  "You  said  your  school  didn't  begin 
until  September.  Haven't  we  the  entire, 
unspoiled  summer  ahead  of  us  ?" 

"Clothes,"  she  remarked  briefly.  "Yours 
may  last  all  summer,  but  mine  won't — not 
if  we  have  to  go  on  tramping  through  the 
woods  every  day." 

Prime's  laugh  was  a  shout.  "We'll  be 
blanket  Indians,  both  of  us,  before  we  get 
out  of  this.  I  feel  that  in  my  bones,  too. 
But  about  the  second  carry;  we'll  make  it 
if  you  say  so.  It  will  at  least  give  us  a  good 
appetite  for  supper." 

72 


Canoedlings 

They  made  it,  reaching  the  end  of  the 
six-mile  doubling  a  short  while  before  the 
late  sunset.  Prime  was  all  in,  down,  and 
out,  but  he  would  not  admit  it  until  after 
the  supper  had  been  eaten  and  the  shelter- 
tent  set  up  over  its  bed  of  spruce-tips.  Then 
he  let  go  with  both  hands. 

"I'm  dog-tired,  and  I  am  not  ashamed  to 
admit  it,"  he  confessed.  "But  you — you 
look  as  fresh  as  a  daisy.  What  are  you  made 
of — spring  steel  ?" 

"Not  by  any  manner  of  means;  but  I 
wasn't  going  to  be  the  first  to  say  anything. 
I  feel  as  if  I  were  slowly  ossifying.  I  wouldn't 
walk  another  mile  to-night  for  a  fortune." 

Prime  stretched  himself  lazily  before  the 
fire  with  his  hands  under  his  head.  "Luckily, 
you  don't  have  to.  You  had  better  turn  in 
and  get  all  the  sleep  that  is  coming  to  you. 
I'm  going  to  hit  the  blankets  after  I  smoke 
another  pinch  of  this  horrible  tobacco." 

As  he  sat  up  to  roll  the  pinch  a  rising 
wind  began  to  swish  through  the  tree-tops. 
A  little  later  there  was  a  fitful  play  of  light- 
ning followed  by  a  muttering  of  distant 
thunder. 

73 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"That  means  rain,  and  you  are  going  to 
get  wet,"  said  the  young  woman,  as  she  was 
preparing  to  creep  under  her  canvas.  An 
instant  later  a  gusty  blast  came  down  the 
river,  threatening  to  scatter  the  fire.  Prime 
sprang  up  at  once  and  began  to  take  the 
necessary  precautions  against  a  conflagra- 
tion. In  the  midst  of  the  haste-making  he 
heard  his  companion  say:  "We  might  drag 
the  canoe  up  here  and  turn  it  over  so  that 
you  could  have  it  for  a  shelter." 

With  the  fire  safely  banked  they  went 
together  to  the  river's  edge  to  carry  out  her 
suggestion.  By  this  time  the  precursor  blast 
of  the  shower  was  lashing  the  little  river 
into  foam,  and  the  spray  from  the  rapid 
just  above  them  wet  their  faces.  One  glance, 
lightning  assisted,  at  the  little  beach  where 
they  had  drawn  up  the  canoe  was  enough. 
The  birch-bark  was  gone. 

The  young  woman  was  the  first  to  find 
speech.  At  another  lightning-flash  she  cried 
out  quickly: 

"There  it  is !  Don't  you  see  it  ? — going 
down  the  river !  The  wind  is  blowing  it 
away !" 

74 


Canoedlings 

Immediately  they  dashed  off  in  pursuit, 
stumbling  through  the  forest  in  darkness, 
which,  between  the  lightning-flashes,  was 
like  a  blanketing  of  invisibility.  The  race 
was  a  short  one.  One  flash  showed  them 
the  canoe  dancing  down  the  raceway  of  a 
lower  rapid,  and  at  the  next  it  had  disap- 
peared. 


75 


VII 

ROULANT  MA  BOULE 

AT  the  disappearance  of  the  canoe  Prime 
called  the  halt  which  the  black  darkness 
was  insisting  upon,  and  they  made  their 
way  back  in  the  teeth  of  the  storm  to  the 
camp-fire.  In  a  few  minutes  the  summer 
squall  had  blown  itself  out,  with  scarcely 
enough  rain  to  make  a  drip  from  the  trees. 
Weary  as  he  was,  Prime  took  the  axe,  searched 
until  he  found  a  pine  stump,  and  from  it 
hewed  the  material  for  a  couple  of  torches. 
With  these  for  light  they  set  out  doggedly 
down-stream  in  search  of  their  lost  hope. 

Happily,  since  they  were  both  fagged 
enough  to  drop  in  their  tracks,  the  birch- 
bark  was  discovered  stranded  on  their  side 
of  the  river  a  hundred  yards  below  the  lower 
rapid.  This  time  they  ran  no  risks,  and, 
though  it  cost  them  a  half-hour  of  stumbling 
toil,  they  did  not  rest  until  they  had  carried 
the  canoe  around  the  rapid  to  place  it  high 

76 


Roulant  Ma  Boule 

and  dry  in  the  little  glade  where  they  had 
made  their  camp. 

The  next  morning  found  them  plentifully 
stiff  and  sore  from  their  strenuous  exertions 
of  the  day  before,  but  there  was  good  cheer 
in  the  thought  that  thus  far  they  had 
triumphed  stoutly  over  difficulty  and  dis- 
aster. 

"I  feel  as  if  I  couldn't  put  one  foot  before 
the  other,  and  I  am  sure  you  must  be  in  the 
same  condition,"  Prime  groaned,  over  the 
second  helping  of  fried  potatoes  and  bacon, 
served  in  Domestic  Science's  best  style. 
"Just  the  same,  I  mean  to  take  a  dose  of 
the  hair  of  the  dog  that  bit  me  and  go  up 
after  the  remainder  of  our  loot.  While  I 
am  doing  it  you  must  stay  here  and  watch 
the  canoe,  to  see  that  it  doesn't  run  away 
again.  I  wouldn't  trust  it  a  single  minute, 
even  on  dry  land." 

"No,"  was  the  firm  rejoinder.  "You 
must  get  the  sex  idea  out  of  your  head  once 
for  all,  Donald.  It  will  be  time  enough  for 
you  to  make  it  easy  for  me  when  I  need  it 
worse  than  I  do  now." 

"Yesterday  I  said  you  were  a  wonder, 
77 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

Lucetta;  to-day  I  rise  to  remark  that  you 
are  two  wonders,  and  mighty  plucky  ones 
at  that." 

"And  to-morrow  I  shall  be  three  wonders, 
and  the  next  day  four,  and  so  on  to  infinity, 
I  suppose,"  she  said,  laughing.  "By  the 
way,  speaking  of  days,  what  day  is  this?" 

Prime  drew  a  notched  twig  from  his 
pocket. 

"Don't  ever  say  after  this  that  I  am  not 
the  original  Robinson  Crusoe,"  he  grinned. 
"I  cut  this  twig  the  second  day,  just  before 
we  began  the  hike  for  the  river."  Then  he 
counted  up:  "According  to  my  almanac, 
this  ought  to  be  Monday — wash-day." 

"Then  yesterday  was  Sunday,  which  is 
why  we  had  all  our  bad  luck.  We  ought 
to  have  gone  to  church.  Is  it  possible  that 
we  were  both  in  Quebec  no  longer  ago  than 
last  Tuesday  night  ?  It  seems  as  if  months 
had  elapsed  since  then — months,  I  said,  but  I 
ought  to  have  said  ages." 

"Are  things  changing  for  you  so  radically, 
then  ?"  he  asked. 

"They  are,  indeed.    And  for  you?" 

"Yes;  I  guess  so.  For  one  thing,  I  have 
78 


Roulant  Ma  Boule 

discovered  the  habitat  of  about  a  million 
muscles  that  I  didn't  know  I  had;  and  for 
another " 

"Well?"  she  challenged,  "why  don't  you 
say  it?" 

"I  will  say  it.  For  another,  I  have  dis- 
covered the  most  remarkable  woman  that 
ever  lived." 

She  laughed  joyously.  "See  what  a  few 
days  of  unavoidable  propinquity  will  do ! 
But  you  are  mistaken — I'm  not  especially 
remarkable.  You  are  only  doing  what  Mr. 
Grider  said  you  ought  to  do — studying  the 
female  of  the  species  at  short  range." 

"Grider  was  an  ass!"  was  the  impatient 
rejoinder.  "If  I  had  him  here  I'd  duck  him 
in  the  river  in  spite  of  his  fifty  pounds  ex- 
cess. But  this  isn't  getting  the  remainder 
of  the  dunnage.  Are  you  quite  sure  you 
want  to  go  along  ? " 

"Quite  sure,"  she  returned,  and  once  more 
they  took  the  riverside  trail  to  the  stream- 
head. 

The  third  carry  was  lighter  than  the  others 
had  been,  and  the  six-mile  tramp  was  the 
best  possible  antidote  for  stiffened  joints 

79 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

and  lamed  muscles.  By  the  time  they  had 
reassembled  themselves  and  their  belongings 
in  the  little  glade  between  the  rapids  they 
were  both  in  fine  fettle,  and  ready  to  begin 
the  real  journey. 

The  loading  of  the  canoe  was  a  new  thing, 
but  in  this  they  gave  common  sense  a  free 
rein.  The  camp  stuff  and  provisions  were 
made  into  packages  with  the  blankets  and 
the  tent  canvas  for  wrappings;  and  each 
package  was  securely  lashed  beneath  the 
brace-bars  of  the  birch-bark,  so  that  in  case 
of  a  capsize  there  would  still  be  some  chance 
for  salvage.  Prime's  final  precaution  was 
worthy  of  a  real  woodsman.  Drying  the 
empty  whiskey-bottle  carefully  with  a  wisp 
of  grass,  he  filled  it  with  matches,  corked  it 
tightly,  and  skewered  it  in  an  inside  pocket 
of  his  coat. 

"You  are  learning,"  Lucetta  observed; 
and  then:  "Did  you  get  that  out  of  a  story  ?" 

"No,  indeed;  I  dug  it  up  whole  out  of  my 
literary  imagination.  If  I  should  tumble 
overboard  you  want  to  be  sure  to  save  the 
pieces,  if  you  ever  hope  to  see  a  fire  again. 
Are  we  all  ready  ?" 

Five  minutes  later  they  had  taken  their 
80 


Roulant  Ma  Boule 

lives  in  their  hands  and  were  shooting  the 
rapids.  With  the  laden  canoe  the  paddling 
was  an  entirely  different  proposition.  Mile 
after  mile  the  quick  water  held,  with  only 
the  shortest  of  reaches  between  Scylia  and 
Charybdis  for  the  breath-catching.  At  first 
the  keen  strain  of  it  keyed  nerve  and  muscle 
to  the  snapping-point;  but  after  a  time  the 
fine  wine  of  peril  had  its  due  and  exhilarating 
effect,  and  they  shouted  and  laughed,  calling 
to  each  other  above  the  turmoil  of  the  waters, 
gasping  joyously  when  the  spray  from  the 
white-fanged  boulders  slapped  them  in  the 
face,  and  having  the  luck  of  the  innocent  or 
the  drunken,  since  disaster  held  aloof  and 
they  escaped  with  nothing  more  serious  than 
the  spray  wettings. 

Though  light-heartedness  thus  sat  in  the 
saddle — or  knelt  on  the  paddling-mat — pru- 
dence was  not  wholly  banished.  At  noon, 
when  they  pulled  out  at  the  foot  of  a  quiet 
reach  to  make  a  pot  of  tea,  they  found  that 
they  were  at  the  head  of  a  rapid  too  swift 
and  tortuous  to  offer  anything  but  certain 
catastrophe.  While  the  tea  water  was  heat- 
ing Prime  went  ahead  to  reconnoitre. 

"Too  many  chances,"  he  reported  on  his 
Si 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

return.  "And,  besides,  the  carry  is  only  a 
few  hundred  yards.  It  means  more  hard 
work,  but  we  can't  afford  to  run  the  risk." 

"Oh,  dear  me!"  sighed  the  young  woman 
in  mock  despair;  "have  we  got  to  unload 
that  canoe  piece  by  piece,  and  then  carry 
and  load  it  all  over  again  ?" 

"We  shall  doubtless  have  to  do  it  so  many 
times  that  we  shall  count  that  day  lost 
when  we  are  denied  the  opportunity,"  Prime 
laughed.  "But,  Heaven  helping  us,  we  shall 
make  no  more  three-mile  portages,  as  we  did 
yesterday." 

The  task  did  not  seem  quite  so  formidable 
after  they  had  broken  their  fast.  Moreover, 
in  the  repeated  packings  and  unpackings, 
they  were  gaining  facility.  With  the  dun- 
nage transported  they  were  ready  to  attack 
the  birch-bark,  and  Lucetta  had  an  inspira- 
tion. 

"Haven't  I  seen  a  picture  somewhere  of 
the  old  voyageurs  carrying  their  canoes  on 
their  heads?"  she  asked. 

"Why,  of  course!"  said  Prime.  "Why 
didn't  we  think  of  that  last  night  ?  I  believe 
I  could  carry  it  that  way  alone.  Now,  then, 

82 


Roulant  Ma  Boule 

over  she  goes  and  up  she  goes;  you  set  the 
pace,  and  for  pity's  sake  don't  stumble." 

Nobody  stumbled,  and  in  due  time  the 
canoe  was  launched  below  the  rapids,  was 
reloaded,  and  the  paddling  was  resumed. 
This  day,  which  ended  in  a  snug  camp  at 
the  foot  of  a  stretch  of  slow  water  which 
had  kept  them  paddling  all  the  afternoon, 
was  a  fair  sample  of  their  days  through  the 
remainder  of  the  week.  Night  after  night, 
after  they  had  been  shooting  rapids,  or  mak- 
ing long  carries,  or  paddling  steadily  through 
stretches  where  the  current  did  not  go  fast 
enough  for  them,  Prime  found  Lucetta's 
prophecy  as  to  his  growth  coming  true.  Day 
by  day  he  was  rinding  himself  anew,  advanc- 
ing by  leaps  and  bounds,  as  it  seemed,  into 
a  stronger  and  fresher  and  simpler  manhood. 

And  as  for  the  young  woman — there  were 
times  when  the  realization  that  in  a  few  hours 
of  a  single  mysterious  night  she  had  passed 
from  the  world  of  the  commonplace  into  a 
world  hitherto  unpictured  even  in  her  wildest 
imaginings,  was  graspable,  but  these  mo- 
ments were  rare.  Adaptable,  even  under 
the  fetterings  of  the  conventions,  Lucetta 

83 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

Millington  was  finding  herself  fairly  gifted 
now  that  the  fetterings  were  removed.  From 
childhood  she  had  longed  for  an  opportunity 
to  explore  the  undiscovered  regions  of  her 
own  individuality,  and  now  the  opportunity 
had  come.  It  pleased  her  prodigiously  to 
find  that  Prime  seemed  not  to  be  even  re- 
motely touched  by  their  unchaperoned  con- 
dition. From  the  first  he  had  been  merely 
the  loyal  comrade,  and  she  tried  consistently 
to  meet  him  always  upon  his  own  ground — 
tried  and  succeeded. 

On  the  Saturday  night  they  found  them- 
selves at  the  head  of  a  long  portage,  still  in 
the  heart  of  the  wilderness,  and  having  yet 
to  see  the  first  sign  of  any  human  predecessor 
along  the  pathway  traced  through  the  great 
forest  by  their  little  river. 

"I  can't  understand  it,"  Prime  said  that 
night  over  the  camp-fire.  "We  have  covered 
a  good  many  miles  since  last  Monday,  and 
still  we  don't  seem  to  be  getting  anywhere. 
Another  thing  I  don't  fancy  is  the  way  the 
river  has  changed  its  course.  Have  you 
noticed  that  for  the  last  three  days  it  has 
been  flowing  mainly  northward  ? " 

84 


Roulant  Ma  Boule 

The  young  woman  became  interested  at 
once.  "I  hadn't  noticed  it,"  she  admitted, 
and  then:  "Why  don't  you  like  it  ?" 

"Because  it  seems  a  bit  ominous.  It  may 
mean  that  we  were  carted  clear  over  to  the 
northern  side  of  the  big  watershed,  though 
that  doesn't  seem  possible.  If  we  were,  we 
are  going  painstakingly  away  from  civiliza- 
tion instead  of  toward  it.  That  would  ac- 
count at  once  for  the  fact  that  we  haven't 
come  across  any  timber-cuttings.  The 
northern  rivers  all  flow  into  Hudson  Bay." 

Lucetta's  gaze  became  abstracted.  "Be- 
sides that,  we  are  still  groping  in  the  blind 
alleys  of  the  mysteries,"  she  put  in.  "Have 
you  given  up  the  Mr.  Grider  idea  ? " 

"I  can't  give  it  up  wholly  and  save  my 
sanity,"  Prime  averred.  "Think  a  minute; 
if  we  throw  that  away,  what  have  we  to  fall 
back  upon  ?  Nothing,  absolutely  nothing ! 
Nature  abhors  a  vacuum,  and  so  does  the 
sane  mind.  Don't  mistake  me;  I  haven't 
the  slightest  idea  that  Grider  let  us  in  for 
any  such  experience  as  this,  meaning  to. 
But  he  took  a  chance,  as  every  practical 
joker  does,  and  the  result  in  our  case  has 

85 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

spelled  disaster.    I  am  only  hoping  that  it  has 
spelled  disaster  for  him,  too,  confound  him ! " 

She  smiled  sweetly. 

"Are  you  calling  it  disaster  now  ?  Only 
yesterday  you  said  you  were  enjoying  it. 
Have  you  changed  your  mind  ? " 

"I  have,  and  I  haven't.  From  a  purely 
selfish  point  of  view,  I'm  having  the  finest 
kind  of  a  vacation,  and  enjoying  every  blessed 
minute  of  it.  More  than  that,  the  raggeder 
I  grow  the  better  I  feel.  It's  perfectly  bar- 
barous, I  know;  but  it  is  the  truth.  My 
compunctions  are  all  vicarious.  I  shouldn't 
have  had  half  so  much  fun  if  I  had  gone 
motoring  through  New  England." 

The  young  woman  smiled  again.  "You 
needn't  waste  any  of  the  vicarious  compunc- 
tions on  me.  Honestly,  Donald,  I — I'm  hav- 
ing the  time  of  my  life.  It  is  the  call  of  the 
wild,  I  suppose.  I  shall  go  back  home,  if  I 
ever  reach  home,  a  perfect  savage,  no  doubt, 
but  the  life  of  the  humdrum  will  never  be 
able  to  lay  hold  of  me  again,  in  the  sense 
that  it  will  possess  me,  as  it  used  to." 

Prime's  grin  was  an  expression  of  the 
purely  primitive. 

86 


Roulant  Ma  Boule 

"It  is  a  reversion  to  type,"  he  asserted, 
getting  up  to  arrange  Lucetta's  sleeping- 
tent.  "  It  makes  one  wonder  if  all  humanity 
isn't  built  that  way;  if  it  wouldn't  go  back 
at  a  gallop  if  it  were  given  half  a  chance." 

"I  don't  call  it  going  back,"  was  the  quiet 
reply.  "I  feel  as  if  I  had  merely  dropped  a 
large  number  of  utterly  useless  hamperings. 
Life  has  never  seemed  so  free  and  completely 
desirable  before,  and  yet,  when  we  have 
been  running  some  of  the  most  terrifying 
rapids,  I  have  felt  that  I  could  give  it  up 
without  a  murmur  if  I  shouldn't  prove  big 
enough  to  keep  it  in  spite  of  the  hazards. 
At  such  times  I  have  felt  that  I  could  go  out 
with  only  one  big  regret — the  thought  that 
I  wasn't  going  to  live  long  enough  to  find 
out  why  I  had  to  be  drowned  in  the  heart  of 
a  Canadian  forest." 


VIII 

CRACKING    VENEERS 

AT  the  foot  of  the  long  portage  which  had 
closed  the  week  for  them  the  two  voyagers 
found  the  course  of  their  river  changing 
again  to  the  southeastward,  and  were  en- 
couraged accordingly.  In  addition  to  the 
changing  course  the  stream  was  taking  on 
greater  volume,  and,  while  the  rapids  were 
not  so  numerous,  they  were  more  dangerous, 
or  at  least  they  looked  so. 

By  this  time  they  were  acquiring  consider- 
able skill  with  the  paddles,  together  with  a 
fine,  woodcrafty  indifference  to  the  hardships. 
In  the  quick  water  they  were  never  dry,  and 
they  came  presently  to  disregard  the  wettings, 
or  rather  to  take  them  as  a  part  of  the  day's 
work.  As  the  comradeship  ripened,  their  at- 
titude toward  each  other  grew  more  and 
more  intolerant  of  the  civilized  reservations. 

Over  the  night  fires  their  talk  dug  deeply 
into  the  abstractions,  losing  artificiality  in 


Cracking  Veneers 

just  proportion  to  the  cracking  and  peeling  of 
the  veneers. 

"I  am  beginning  to  feel  as  though  I  had 
never  touched  the  real  realities  before,"  was 
the  way  Prime  expressed  it  at  the  close  of 
a  day  in  which  they  had  run  a  fresh  gamut 
of  all  the  perils.  "Life,  the  life  that  the 
vast  majority  of  people  thrive  upon,  will 
always  seem  ridiculously  trivial  and  common- 
place tc  me  after  this.  I  never  understood 
before  that  civilization  is  chiefly  an  overlay- 
ing of  extraneous  things,  and  that,  given  a 
chance,  it  would  disintegrate  and  fall  away 
from  us  even  as  our  civilized  clothes  are 
doing  right  now." 

The  young  woman  looked  up  with  a  quaint 
little  grimace.  She  was  trying  to  patch  the 
frayed  hem  of  her  skirt,  sewing  with  a  thread 
drawn  from  one  of  the  blankets  and  a  clumsy 
needle  Prime  had  fashioned  for  her  out  of  a 
fish-bone. 

"Please  don't  mention  clothes,"  she 
begged.  "If  we  had  more  of  the  deerskin 
I'd  become  a  squaw  at  once.  The  fringes 
wouldn't  look  so  bad  if  they  were  done  in 
leather." 

89 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"Mere  accessories/'  Prime  declared,  mean- 
ing the  clothes.  "Civilization  prescribes 
them,  their  cut,  fashion,  and  material.  The 
buckskin  Indians  have  the  best  of  us  in  this, 
as  in  many  other  things." 

"The  realities  ?"  she  queried. 

"The  simplicities,"  he  qualified.  "Life  as 
we  have  lived  it,  and  as  we  shall  probably 
live  it  again  if  we  ever  get  out  of  this,  is 
much  too  complex.  We  are  learning  how  few 
the  real  necessities  are,  and  it  is  good  for  the 
soul.  I  wouldn't  take  a  fortune  for  what 
IVe  been  learning  in  these  weeks,  Lucetta." 

"I  have  been  learning,  too,"  she  admitted. 

"Other  things  besides  the  use  of  a  paddle 
and  a  camp-fire  ?" 

"Many  other  things.  I  have  forgotten 
the  world  I  knew  best,  and  it  is  going  to 
require  a  tremendous  effort  to  remember  it 
again  when  the  need  arises." 

"I  shall  never  get  back  to  where  I  was 
before,"  Prime  asserted  with  cheerful  dog- 
matism. Then,  in  a  fresh  burst  of  con- 
fidence: "Lucetta,  I'm  coming  to  suspect 
that  I  have  always  been  the  merest  surface- 
skimmer.  I  thought  I  knew  life  a  little,  and 

90 


Cracking  Veneers 

was  even  brash  enough  to  attempt  to  write 
about  it.  I  thought  I  could  visualize  hu- 
manity and  its  possibilities,  but  what  I  saw 
was  only  the  outer  skin — of  people  and  of 
things.  But  my  greatest  impertinence  has 
been  in  my  handling  of  women." 

"Injustice?"  she  inquired. 

"Not  intentional;  just  crass  ignorance. 
I  know  now  that  I  was  merely  imitative, 
choosing  for  models  the  character-drawings 
of  men  who  knew  even  less  about  women 
than  I  did.  Vapid  sentimentality  was  about 
as  far  as  I  could  get.  It  revolts  me  to  think 
of  it  now." 

Her  laugh  was  as  unrestrained  as  that  of 
a  child.  "You  amuse  me,  Donald.  Most 
women  are  hopelessly  sentimental.  Don't 
you  know  that  ?" 

"You  are  not,"  he  retorted  soberly. 

"How  do  you  know?" 

"Heavens  and  earth !  if  I  haven't  had  an 
opportunity  to  find  out 

"You  haven't,"  she  returned  quietly;  "not 
the  least  little  morsel  of  an  opportunity.  A 
few  days  ago  we  were  thrown  together — a 
man  and  a  woman  who  were  total  strangers, 

91 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

to  live  or  die  as  the  chance  might  fall.  I 
defy  any  one  to  be  sentimental  in  such  cir- 
cumstances. Sentiment  thrives  only  in  the 
artificialities;  they  are  the  very  breath  of  its 
life.  If  men  and  women  could  know  each 
other  as  they  really  are,  there  would  be 
fewer  marriages,  by  far." 

"And  the  few  would  be  far  happier," 
Prime  put  in. 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  I  doubt  it  very 
much." 

"Why?" 

"Because,  in  the  most  admirable  mar- 
riage there  must  be  some  preservation  of 
the  reticences.  It  is  possible  for  people  to 
know  each  other  too  well." 

"I  don't  think  so,  if  the  qualities  are  of 
the  kind  that  will  stand  the  test." 

"Who  has  such  qualities?"  she  asked 
quickly. 

"You  have,  for  one.  I  didn't  believe  there 
was  a  human  woman  on  earth  who  could 
go  through  what  you  have  and  still  keep 
sweet.  Setting  aside  the  hardships,  I  fancy 
most  other  women  would  have  gone  stark, 
staring  mad  puzzling  over  the  mystery." 

92 


Cracking  Veneers 

"Ah,  yes;  the  mystery.  Shall  we  ever  be 
able  to  explain  it  ?" 

"Not  if  we  decide  to  throw  Grider  over- 
board, I'm  afraid." 

"Doesn't  the  Mr.  Grider  solution  seem 
less  and  less  possible  to  you  as  time  goes 
on?"  she  asked.  "It  does  to  me.  The 
motive — a  mere  practical  joke — isn't  strong 
enough.  Whoever  abducted  us  was  trying 
for  something  larger  than  a  laugh  at  our 
expense." 

"  You'd  think  so,  wouldn't  you  ?  Big 
risks  were  incurred,  and  the  expense  must 
have  been  considerable,  too.  Still,  as  I 
have  said  before,  if  we  leave  Grider  out  of 
it  we  abandon  the  one  only  remotely  tenable 
explanation.  I  grant  you  that  the  joke 
motive  is  weak,  but  aside  from  that  there 
is  no  motive  at  all.  Nobody  in  this  world 
could  have  any  possible  object  in  getting  rid 
of  me,  and  I  am  sure  that  the  assumption 
applies  with  equal  force  to  you.  You  see 
where  it  leaves  us." 

"I  know,"  was  the  ready  rejoinder.  "If 
the  mystery  had  stopped  with  our  discovery 
of  the  aeroplane-tracks,  it  would  have  been 

93 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

different.  But  it  didn't  stop  there.  It  con- 
tinued with  our  finding  of  the  ownerless 
canoe  stocked  for  a  long  journey.  Was  the 
canoe  left  for  us  to  find  ?" 

Prime  knew  his  companion  well  enough  by 
this  time  to  be  willing  to  trust  her  with  the 
grewsome  truth. 

"I  don't  know  what  connection  the  canoe 
may  have  had  with  our  kidnapping,  if  any, 
but  I  am  going  to  tell  you  something  that 
I  didn't  care  to  tell  you  until  we  were  far 
enough  away  from  the  scene  of  it.  We 
reasoned  that  there  were  two  owners  for  the 
canoe,  arguing  from  the  two  rifles  and  the 
two  hunting-knives.  Do  you  know  why  they 
didn't  turn  up  while  we  were  waiting  for 
them?" 

"No." 

"It  was  because  they  couldn't.  They  were 
dead." 

"You  knew  it  at  the  time?"  she  asked. 

"Yes.  I  found  them.  It  was  in  a  little 
glade  just  below  our  camp  at  the  river-head. 
They  had  fought  a  duel  with  knives.  It  was 
horrible,  and  I  thought  it  best  not  to  tell 
you — it  seemed  only  the  decent  thing  not 
to  tell  you." 

94 


Cracking  Veneers 

"When  did  you  find  them  ?" 

"It  was  when  I  went  over  to  the  river  on 
the  excuse  of  trying  to  get  some  berries 
while  you  were  cooking  supper.  I  had  seen 
the  canoe  when  I  went  after  the  can  of  water. 
Instead  of  looking  for  berries  I  began  to 
hunt  around  for  the  owners,  thinking  that 
probably  they  were  camped  somewhere  near 
by.  I  didn't  find  any  traces  of  a  camp;  but 
in  the  glade  there  were  the  ashes  of  five  fires 
arranged  in  the  shape  of  a  Greek  cross:  one 
fire  in  the  middle  and  one  at  the  end  of  each 
arm.  This  mystified  me  still  more,  but  it 
was  then  growing  so  dark  that  it  was  no 
use  to  look  farther.  Just  as  I  was  leaving 
the  glade  I  stumbled  over  the  two  men, 
locked  in  each  other's  arms;  they  had  evi- 
dently been  dead  for  some  hours,  or  maybe 
days." 

"How  perfectly  frightful!"  she  exclaimed. 
"I  don't  wonder  that  you  looked  ill  when 
you  came  back." 

"It  nearly  knocked  me  out,"  Prime  con- 
fessed. "  But  I  realized  at  once  that  it  wasn't 
necessary  to  multiply  the  shock  by  two. 
After  you  were  asleep  that  night  I  went  over 
and  buried  the  two  men — weighted  them 

95 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

with  stones  and  sunk  them  in  the  river, 
since  I  didn't  have  anything  to  dig  with. 
Afterward,  while  I  was  searching  for  the 
other  knife,  I  found  a  little  buckskin  bag 
filled  with  English  sovereigns,  lying,  as  I 
supposed,  where  one  of  them  had  dropped 
it.  It  seemed  to  indicate  the  motive  for  the 
desperate  fight." 

"But  it  adds  just  that  much  more  to  the 
mystery,"  was  the  young  woman's  comment. 
"Were  they  white  men?" 

"Half-breeds  or  Indians,  I  couldn't  tell 
which." 

"Somebody  hired  them  to  do  something 
with  us?"  she  suggested  tentatively. 

"That  is  only  a  guess.  I  have  made  it 
half  a  dozen  times  only  to  have  it  pushed 
aside  by  the  incredibilities.  If  we  are  to 
connect  these  two  men  with  our  kidnapping, 
it  presupposes  an  arrangement  made  far  in 
advance.  That  in  itself  is  incredible." 

"What  do  you  make  of  the  five  fires  ?" 

"I  could  make  nothing  of  them  unless  they 
were  intended  for  signal-fires  of  some  kind; 
but  even  in  that  case  the  arrangement  in  the 
form  of  a  cross  wouldn't  mean  anything." 

96 


Cracking  Veneers 

The  young  woman  had  finished  her  mend- 
ing and  was  putting  the  fish-bone  needle 
carefully  away  against  -a  time  of  future  need. 

"The  arrangement  might  mean  something 
if  one  were  looking  down  upon  it  from 
above,"  she  put  in  quietly. 

Prime  got  up  to  kick  the  burned  log-ends 
into  the  heart  of  the  fire. 

"  If  I  didn't  have  such  a  well-trained  imag- 
ination, I  might  have  thought  of  that,"  he 
said,  with  a  short  laugh.  "It  was  a  signal, 
and  it  was  lighted  for  the  benefit  of  our  aero- 
plane. How  much  farther  does  that  get 
us?" 

The  young  woman  was  letting  down  the 
flaps  of  her  sleeping-tent,  and  her  answer 
was  entirely  irrelevant. 

"I  am  glad  the  protective  instinct  was 
sufficiently  alive  tp  keep  you  from  telling 
me  at  the  time,"  she  said,  with  a  little  shudder 
which  she  did  not  try  to  conceal.  "You 
may  not  believe  it,  Donald  Prime,  but  I 
still  have  a  few  of  the  civilized  weaknesses. 
Good  night;  and  don't  sit  up  too  long  with 
that  horrid  tobacco." 


97 


IX 

SHIPWRECK 

THOUGH  the  castaways  had  not  especially 
intended  to  observe  the  day  of  rest,  they 
did  so,  the  Sunday  dawning  wet  and  stormy, 
with  lowering  clouds  and  foggy  intervals 
between  the  showers  to  make  navigation 
extrahazardous.  When  the  rain  settled  into 
a  steady  downpour  they  pulled  the  canoe 
out  of  water,  turning  it  bottom-side  up  to 
serve  as  a  roof  to  shelter  them.  In  the  after- 
noon Prime  took  one  of  the  guns  and  went 
afield,  in  the  hope  of  finding  fresh  meat  of 
some  sort,  though  it  was  out  of  season  and 
he  was  more  than  dubious  as  to  his  skill  as 
either  a  hunter  or  a  marksman.  But  the 
smoked  meats  were  becoming  terribly  monot- 
onous, and  they  had  not  yet  had  the  courage 
to  try  the  pemmican.  Quite  naturally, 
nothing  came  of  the  hunting  expedition  save 
a  thorough  and  prolonged  soaking  of  the 
hunter. 

98 


Shipwreck 

"The  wild  things  have  more  sense  than  I 
have,"  he  announced  on  his  return.  "They 
know  enough  to  stay  in  out  of  the  rain. 
Can  you  stand  the  cold-storage  stuff  a  little 
while  longer?" 

Lucetta  said  she  could,  and  specialized  the 
Sunday-evening  meal  by  concocting  an  ap- 
petizing pan-stew  of  smoked  venison  and 
potatoes  to  vary  the  deadly  monotonies. 

The  Monday  morning  brought  a  return 
of  the  fine  weather.  The  storm  had  blown 
itself  out  during  the  night  and  the  skies  were 
clearing.  The  day  of  rain  had  swollen  the 
river  quite  perceptibly,  and  a  short  distance 
below  their  Sunday  camp  its  volume  was 
further  augmented  by  the  inflow  of  another 
river  from  the  east,  which  fairly  doubled  its 
size. 

On  this  day  there  were  fewer  water  haz- 
ards, and  the  current  of  the  enlarged  river 
was  so  swift  that  they  had  little  to  do  save 
to  keep  steerageway  on  the  birch-bark. 
Nevertheless,  it  was  not  all  plain  sailing. 
By  the  middle  of  the  forenoon  the  course 
of  the  stream  had  changed  again  to  the 
northward,  swinging  around  through  a  wide 

99 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

half-circle  to  the  west,  and  this  course,  with 
its  Hudson  Bay  threatenings,  was  main- 
tained throughout  the  remainder  of  the  day. 

Their  night  camp  was  made  at  the  head 
of  a  series  of  rapids,  the  first  of  which,  from 
the  increased  volume  of  the  water,  looked 
more  perilous  than  any  they  had  yet  at- 
tempted. It  was  late  when  they  made  camp 
and,  the  darkness  coming  on  quickly,  they 
were  prevented  from  reconnoitring.  But  they 
had  the  thunder  of  the  flood  for  music  at 
their  evening  meal,  and  it  was  ominous. 

"I  am  afraid  that  noise  is  telling  us  that 
we  are  to  have  no  thoroughfare  to-morrow," 
was  the  young  woman's  comment  upon  the 
thunder  music.  "Let  us  hope  it  will  be  a 
short  carry  this  time." 

Prime  laughed.  "Isn't  there  a  passage 
somewhere  in  the  Bible  about  the  back  being 
fitted  to  its  burden?"  he  asked.  Then  he 
went  on  for  her  encouragement:  "It's  all 
in  the  day's  work,  Lucetta-woman,  and  it 
is  doing  you  no  end  of  good.  The  next  time 
you  are  able  to  look  into  a  mirror  you  won't 
know  yourself." 

Though  she  had  thought  that  she  was 
100 


Shipwreck 

by  this  time  far  beyond  it,  the  young  wom- 
an blushed  a  little  under  the  rich  outdoor 
brown. 

"Then  I'm  not  growing  haggard  and 
old  ?"  she  inquired. 

"Indeed,  you  are  not!"  he  asserted 
loyally.  "I'm  the  beauty  of  the  two" — pass- 
ing a  hand  over  the  three  weeks'  growth  of 
stubble  beard  on  his  face.  "You  are  putting 
on  weight  every  day.  In  another  week  your 
face  will  be  as  round  as  a  full  moon.  It  may 
not  sound  like  it,  but  that  was  meant  for  a 
compliment." 

"Was  I  too  thin?"  she  wanted  to  know. 

"Er — not  precisely  thin,  perhaps;  but  a 
little  strenuous.  You  gave  me  the  idea  at 
first  that  Domestic  Science,  with  gymnasium 
teaching  on  the  side,  had  been  a  trifle  too 
much  for  you.  Had  they?" 

"No;  I  was  perfectly  fit.  But  one  ac- 
quires the  habit  of  living  tensely  in  that 
other  world  that  we  have  lost  and  can't 
find  again.  It  is  human  to  wish  to  make 
money,  and  then  a  little  more  money." 

"What  special  use  have  you  for  a  little 
more  money?"  Prime  asked  curiously. 

101 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"Travel,"  she  said  succinctly.  "I  should 
like  to  see  the  world;  all  of  it." 

"That  wouldn't  take  so  very  much  money. 
Goodness  knows,  the  pen  isn't  much  of  a 
mining-pick,  but  with  it  I  have  contrived  to 
dig  out  a  year  in  Europe." 

"You  couldn't  have  done  it  teaching  the 
daughters  of  retired  farmers  how  to  cook 
rationally,"  she  averred.  "Besides,  my  earn- 
ing year  is  only  nine  months  long." 

"Then  you  really  do  want  money?" 

"Yes;  not  much  money,  but  just  enough. 
That  is,  if  there  is  any  such  half-way 
stopping-point  for  the  avaricious." 

"There  is,"  he  asserted.  "I  have  found 
it  for  myself.  I  should  like  to  have  money 
enough  to  enable  me  to  write  a  book  in  the 
way  a  book  ought  to  be  written — in  perfect 
leisure  and  without  a  single  distracting 
thought  of  the  royalty  check.  No  man  can 
do  his  best  with  one  eye  fixed  firmly  upon 
the  treasurer's  office." 

"I  had  never  thought  of  that,"  she  mused. 
"I  always  supposed  a  writer  worked  under 
inspiration." 

"  So  he  does,  the  inspiration  of  the  butcher 
1 02 


Shipwreck 

and  the  baker  and  the  anxious  landlord.  I 
can  earn  a  living;  I  have  done  it  for  a  number 
of  years;  but  it  is  only  a  living  for  one,  and 
there  isn't  anything  to  put  aside  against 
the  writing  of  the  leisurely  book — or  other 
things." 

"Oh!  then  you  have  other  ambitions, 
too." 

"The  one  ambition  that  every  normal- 
minded  man  ought  to  have:  I  want  a  wife 
and  babies  and  a  home." 

"Then  you  certainly  need  money,"  she 
laughed. 

"Sure  I  do;  but  not  too  much — always 
remember  that — not  too  much." 

"What    would    you    call    'too    much*  ?" 

"Enough  to  spoil  the  children  and  to 
make  it  unnecessary  for  me  ever  to  write 
another  line." 

This  time  her  laugh  was  mocking.  "Just 
now  you  said  you  wanted  enough  so  that 
you  could  write  without  thinking  of  money," 
she  reminded  him. 

"Oh,  there  is  a  golden  mean;  it  doesn't 
have  to  be  all  honey  or  all  vinegar.  A  nice 
tidy  little  income  that  would  provide  at  a 

103 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

pinch  for  the  butcher  and  the  baker  and  the 
other  people.  You  know  what  I  mean." 

"Yes,  I  think  I  do;  and  my  ambition  is 
hardly  more  soaring  than  yours.  As  you 
remarked,  it  doesn't  cost  so  frightfully  much 
to  travel  and  live  abroad." 

He  looked  at  her  dubiously.  "You  don't 
mean  that  you'd  wish  to  travel  all  the  time, 
do  you  ?" 

"Why  not?" 

"Why — er — I  don't  know  precisely.  But 
you'd  want  to  settle  down  and  have  a  home 
some  time,  wouldn't  you  ?" 

"And  cook  for  a  man  ?"  she  put  in.  "  Per- 
haps I  haven't  found  the  man." 

Prime's  laugh  was  boyishly  blatant. 

"I  notice  you  are  cooking  pretty  assidu- 
ously for  a  man  these  days.  But  perhaps 
that  is  only  in  self-defense.  If  the  man 
cooked  for  you  you  wouldn't  live  very  long." 

"I  am  merely  doing  my  bit,  as  the  Eng- 
lish say,"  was  the  cool  retort.  "I  haven't 
said  that  I  like  to  do  it." 

"But  you  do  like  to  do  it,"  he  insisted. 
"If  you  didn't,  you  couldn't  hit  it  off  so 
cheerfully.  I  know  a  thing  or  two,  and  what 

104 


Shipwreck 

I  don't  know  I  am  learning.  You  are  a  per- 
fectly normal  woman,  Lucetta,  and  nor- 
mality doesn't  mean  continuous  travel." 

"You  have  changed  your  mind  again. 
Last  week  you  were  calling  me  abnormal, 
and  saying  that  you  had  never  met  a  woman 
like  me  before." 

"I  hadn't;  but  that  was  my  misfortune. 
I  hope  there  are  a  good  many  like  you;  I've 
got  to  hope  it  for  the  sake  of  humanity  and 
the  good  of  the  race.  But  this  talk  isn't 
getting  us  anywhere.  We  had  better  turn 
in;  there  is  a  hard  day  ahead  of  us  to- 
morrow." 

In  the  morning  the  prophecy  seemed 
destined  to  fulfil  itself  in  heaping  measure. 
While  Lucetta  was  getting  breakfast  Prime 
took  to  the  woods  and  made  a  careful  survey 
of  some  portion  of  the  hazards  ahead.  He 
was  gone  for  the  better  part  of  an  hour,  and 
when  he  came  back  his  report  was  not  en- 
couraging. 

"Worse  and  more  of  it,"  was  the  way  he 
described  the  difficulties.  "It  is  just  one 
rapid  after  another,  as  far  as  I  went;  and 
that  must  have  been  a  mile  and  a  half  or 

105 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

more.  Coming  back,  I  kept  to  the  river 
bank,  and  tried  to  imagine  us  picking  the 
way  between  the  rocks  in  the  channel.  I 
believe  we  can  do  it  if  you  have  the  nerve  to 
try." 

"If  /  have  the  nerve?"  she  flung  back. 
"Is  that  a  revival  of  the  sex  idea?" 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  hastened  to  say. 
"It  was  simply  a  manner  of  speaking.  Your 
nerve  is  like  the  rest  of  you — superb.  We'll 
shoot  the  rapids  if  it  takes  a  leg.  It  would 
ask  for  more  than  a  leg  to  make  the  carry." 

A  little  later  they  loaded  the  canoe  care- 
fully for  the  greater  hazard,  packing  the 
dunnage  securely  and  protecting  the  meal 
and  the  flour  as  well  as  they  could  by  wrap- 
ping them  tightly  in  the  canvas  roll.  Past 
this,  they  cut  strips  from  the  remaining 
scraps  of  deerskin  and  tied  everything,  even 
to  the  utensils,  the  guns,  and  the  axe,  to  the 
braces,  taking  time  to  make  their  prepara- 
tions thorough. 

It  was  well  that  they  took  the  time  while 
they  had  it.  After  the  birch-bark  had  been 
headed  into  the  first  of  the  rapids  there  was 
no  time  for  anything  but  the  strenuous  fight 

106 


Shipwreck 

for  life.  Faster  and  still  faster  the  frail  craft 
leaped  on  its  way,  down  one  rapid  and  into 
another  before  they  could  congratulate  them- 
selves upon  the  latest  hairbreadth  dodging  of 
the  thickly  strewn  boulders. 

From  time  to  time  in  the  brief  respites 
Prime  shouted  encouragement  to  his  canoe- 
mate.  "Keep  it  up — it  can't  last  forever! 
We're  doing  nobly.  Look  out  for  this  big 
beggar  just  ahead !" 

So  it  went  on,  from  bad  to  worse  and  then 
to  bad  again,  but  never  with  a  chance  for  a 
landing  or  a  moment's  rest  from  the  en- 
grossing vigilance.  Prime  gasped  and  was 
thankful  that  there  were  days  of  sharp 
muscle-hardening  behind  them  to  fit  them 
for  this  crowning  test.  He  was  sure  he  could 
measure  Lucetta's  fortitude  by  his  own. 
So  long  as  he  could  endure  the  strain  he  knew 
he  could  count  upon  hearing  the  steady  dip 
of  her  paddle  keeping  time  with  his  own. 

But  the  worst  of  the  worst  was  yet  to 
come.  At  the  foot  of  a  series  of  rapids  which 
were  like  a  steeply  descending  stair,  they 
found  themselves  in  a  sluiceway  where  the 
enlarged  river  ran  like  a  torrent  in  flood. 

107 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

On  the  still  air  of  the  summer  day  a  hoarse 
clamor  was  rising  to  warn  them  that  there 
was  a  cataract  ahead.  Prime's  cry  of  alarm 
was  not  needed.  With  the  first  backing  dip 
of  the  paddle  he  felt  the  braking  impulse 
at  the  stern  striking  in  with  his  own. 

"Hold  her!"  he  shouted.  "We've  got  to 
make  the  shore,  if  it  smashes  us!"  But  the 
puny  strength  of  the  two  pairs  of  arms  was 
as  nothing  when  pitted  against  the  onsweep 
of  the  mighty  flood.  For  a  brief  instant  the 
downward  rush  of  the  canoe  was  checked; 
then  it  was  caught  in  a  whirling  eddy  and 
spun  end  for  end  as  if  upon  a  pivot.  When 
it  straightened  up  for  the  leap  over  the 
shallow  fall  it  was  headed  the  wrong  way, 
and  a  moment  later  the  crash  came. 

The  young  woman  was  the  only  one  of 
the  two  who  knew  definitely  what  followed. 
In  the  tipping  glide  over  the  brink  they  were 
both  thrown  out  of  the  canoe  and  spilled 
into  the  whirlpool  at  the  foot  of  the  cataract. 
Lucetta  kept  her  head  sufficiently  to  re- 
member that  Prime  could  not  swim,  and 
when  she  came  up  from  the  plunge  she  saw 
him,  and  saw  that  he  was  not  struggling. 

1 08 


Shipwreck 

Two  quick  strokes  enabled  her  to  get  her 
fingers  in  his  hair,  and  then  began  a  battle 
in  which  the  strength  of  the  single  free  arm 
had  to  match  itself  against  the  swirling 
current  of  the  whirlpool.  Twice,  and  yet 
once  again,  the  young  woman  and  her  help- 
less burden  were  swept  around  the  circle, 
each  time  drawing  a  little  nearer  to  the  re- 
curving eddy  under  the  fall.  Lucetta  knew 
well  enough  that  a  second  ingulfing  under 
the  cataract  meant  death  for  both,  and  at 
the  beginning  of  the  fourth  circling  she  made 
the  supreme  effort,  winning  the  desperate 
battle  and  struggling  out  upon  the  low  shingly 
bank  of  the  pool,  to  fall  exhausted  when  she 
had  dragged  her  unconscious  canoe-mate  out 
of  the  water. 

After  a  dazed  minute  or  two  she  was  able 
to  sit  up  and  realize  the  extent  of  the  dis- 
aster. The  canoe  had  disappeared  after  its 
leap  into  the  pool,  and  she  did  not  know  what 
had  become  of  it.  And  Prime  was  lying  just 
as  the  dragging  rescue  had  left  him,  with 
his  arms  flung  wide.  His  eyes  were  closed, 
and  his  face,  under  the  three  weeks'  growth 
of  stubble  beard,  was  haggard  and  drawn. 

109 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

In  the  dive  over  the  fall  he  had  struck  his 
head,  and  the  blood  was  oozing  slowly  from 
a  great  bruise  on  his  forehead. 


no 


X 

HORRORS 

IT  is  a  trite  saying  that  even  the  weakest 
strand  in  the  cable  never  knows  how  much 
it  can  pull  until  the  demanding  strain  comes. 
As  a  young  woman  with  athletic  leanings, 
Lucetta  had  had  arduous  drillings  in  first- 
aid,  and  had  drilled  others.  If  Prime  had 
been  merely  drowned  she  would  have  known 
precisely  what  to  do.  But  the  broken  head 
was  a  different  matter. 

Nevertheless,  when  her  own  exhaustion 
was  a  little  assuaged,  she  essayed  the  first- 
aid.  Dragging  the  hapless  one  a  little  farther 
from  the  water's  edge,  she  knelt  beside  him 
to  examine  the  wound  with  fingers  that 
trembled  a  little  as  they  pressed,  in  spite 
of  the  brave  diagnostic  resolution.  There 
was  no  skull  fracture,  but  she  had  no  means 
of  determining  how  serious  the  concussion 
was.  Prime  was  breathing  heavily,  and  the 
bruise  was  already  beginning  to  puff  up  and 
discolor. 

in 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

With  hope  still  in  abeyance,  she  worked 
swiftly.  Warmth  was  the  first  necessity. 
Her  hands  were  shaking  when  she  felt  in  the 
pocket  of  Prime's  coat  for  the  precious  bottle 
of  matches.  Happily  it  was  unbroken,  and 
she  could  have  wept  for  joy.  There  was 
plenty  of  fuel  at  hand,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
she  had  a  fire  blazing  brightly,  before  which 
she  propped  the  wounded  man  to  dry  out, 
though  his  wet  clothing  gave  him  a  swelter- 
ing steam  bath  before  the  desiccating  process 
began.  It  was  heroic  treatment,  but  there 
was  no  alternative,  and  by  the  time  she  had 
him  measurably  dried  and  warm,  her  own 
soggy  discomfort  was  also  abating. 

Having  done  what  she  could,  her  situation 
was  still  as  forlorn  as  it  could  well  be;  she 
was  alone  in  the  heart  of  the  forest  wilder- 
ness with  a  wounded  man,  who  might  live 
or  die  as  the  chance  should  befall — and  there 
was  no  food.  She  set  her  face  determinedly 
against  the  erosive  impatience  of  despair. 
There  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  wait  with 
what  fortitude  she  could  muster. 

The  afternoon  dragged  on  interminably, 
and  to  make  the  prospect  more  dispiriting 

112 


Horrors 

the  sky  clouded  over  and  the  sun  disappeared. 
Toward  evening  Prime  began  to  stir  rest- 
lessly and  to  mutter  in  a  sort  of  feeble  de- 
lirium. The  young  woman  hailed  this  as 
a  hopeful  symptom,  and  yet  the  mutterings 
of  the  unconscious  man  were  inexpressibly 
terrifying.  What  if  the  recovery  should  be 
only  of  the  body  and  not  of  the  mind  ? 

As  the  dusk  began  to  gather,  Lucetta 
found  her  strong  resolution  ebbing  in  spite 
of  all  she  could  do.  The  thunder  of  the 
near-by  cataract  deafened  her,  and  the  dark- 
ling shadows  of  the  forest  were  thickly  shot 
with  unnerving  suggestions.  To  add  the  fin- 
ishing touch,  her  mind  constantly  reverted 
to  the  story  of  the  finding  and  disposal  of 
the  two  dead  men  and  she  could  not  drive 
the  thought  away.  In  a  short  time  it  became 
a  frenzied  obsession,  and  she  found  herself 
staring  wildly  in  a  sort  of  hypnotic  trance 
at  the  waterfall,  fully  expecting  to  see  one 
or  both  of  the  dead  bodies  come  catapulting 
over  it. 

While  it  was  still  light  enough  to  enable 
her  to  distinguish  things  dimly,  something 
did  come  over  the  fall,  a  shapeless  object 

in 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

about  the  size  of  a  human  body,  shooting 
clear  of  the  curving  water  wall,  to  drop  with 
a  sullen  splash  into  the  whirlpool.  Lucetta 
covered  her  eyes  with  her  hands  and  shrieked. 
It  was  the  final  straw,  and  she  made  sure 
her  sanity  was  going. 

She  was  still  gasping  and  trembling  when 
she  heard  a  voice,  and  venturing  to  look 
she  saw  that  Prime  was  sitting  up  and  hold- 
ing his  head  in  his  hands.  The  revulsion 
from  mad  terror  to  returning  sanity  was  so 
sudden  and  overpowering  that  she  wanted 
to  go  to  him  and  fall  on  her  knees  and  hug 
him  merely  because  he  was  a  man  and  alive, 
and  hadn't  died  to  leave  her  alone  with  the 
frightful  horrors. 

"Didn't  I — didn't  I  hear  you  scream?"  he 
mumbled,  twisting  his  tongue  to  the  words 
with  the  utmost  difficulty.  And  then: 
"What  on  earth  has  happened  to  me?  I 
feel — as  if — I  had  been  run  through — a 
threshing-machine." 

"You  were  pitched  out  of  the  canoe  and 
hurt,"  she  told  him.  "I — I  was  afraid  you 
were  going  to  die  !" 

"Was  that  why  you  screamed?"  The 
114 


Horrors 

words  were  still  foolishly  hard  to  find  and 
still  harder  to  set  in  order. 

At  this  she  cried  out  again,  and  again 
covered  her  eyes.  "  No — no !  It  is  there 
yet — in  the  whirlpool — one  of  the — one  of 
the  dead  men!" 

Though  Prime  was  still  scarcely  more  than 
half  conscious  of  his  condition  and  cripplings, 
the  protective  instinct  was  clamoring  to  be 
heard,  dinning  in  his  ears  to  make  him  real- 
ize that  his  companion  was  a  woman,  and 
that  her  miraculous  courage  had  for  some 
cause  reached  its  ultimate  limit.  With  a 
brand  from  the  fire  for  a  torch,  he  crept 
half  mechanically  on  hands  and  knees  to 
the  edge  of  the  bowl-like  whirlpool.  In  due 
time  he  had  a  glimpse  of  a  black  object 
circling  past  in  the  froth  and  spume,  and  he 
threw  the  firebrand  at  it.  A  moment  later 
he  was  setting  the  comforting  prop  of  ex- 
planation under  Lucetta's  toppling  courage. 

"It  is  nothing  but  a  log — just  a  broken  log 
of  wood,"  he  assured  her.  "Forget  it,  and 
tell  me  more  about  how  I  came  to  get  this 
bushel-basket  head  of  mine.  It  aches  like 
sin!" 

"5 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

She  described  the  plunge  of  the  unmanage- 
able canoe  over  the  fall  and  its  immediate 
consequences,  minifying  her  own  part  in  the 


rescue. 
tt 


You  needn't  try  to  wiggle  out  of  it," 
he  said  soberly  at  the  end  of  the  brief  re- 
counting. "You  saved  my  life.  If  you 
hadn't  pulled  me  out,  I'd  be  down  there  in 
that  pool  right  now,  going  round  and  round 
like  that  bally  log  of  wood.  What  do  you 
charge  for  saving  a  man's  life,  Lucetta  ? " 

"A  promise  from  the  man  to  be  more 
careful  in  future.  But  we  mustn't  slide 
back  into  the  artificial  things,  Donald.  For 
all  you  know,  my  motive  might  have  been 
altogether  selfish — perhaps  it  was  selfish. 
My  first  thought  was  a  screaming  horror  of 
being  left  alone  here  in  this  wilderness.  It 
made  me  fight,  fght  /" 

"Is  that  the  truth,  Lucetta?"  he  inquired 
solemnly. 

"Y-yes." 

"All  of  the  truth?" 

"Oh,  perhaps  not  quite  all.  There  is 
such  a  thing  as  the  life-saving  instinct,  isn't 
there  ?  Even  dogs  have  it  sometimes.  Of 

116 


Horrors 

course  I  couldn't  very  well  swim   out    and 
leave  you  to  drown." 

"No,"  he  put  in  definitively,  "you  couldn't 
— and  what's  more,  you  hadn't  the  first 
idea  of  doing  such  a  thing.  And  that  other 
thing  you  told  me  was  only  to  relieve  my 
sense  of  obligation.  You  haven't  relieved 
it — not  an  ounce.  And  I  don't  care  to  have 
it  relieved.  Let  it  go  for  the  time  being, 
and  tell  me  what  became  of  the  canoe." 

"I  haven't  the  faintest  notion.  I  didn't 
see  it  again  after  we  went  over  the  fall.  Of 
course  it  is  smashed  and  ruined  and  lost, 
and  we  are  perfectly  helpless  again." 

For  a  long  minute  Prime  sat  with  his 
throbbing  head  in  his  hands,  trying  to  think 
connectedly.  When  he  looked  up  it  was  to 
say:  "We  are  in  a  pretty  bad  box,  Lucetta, 
with  the  canoe  gone  and  nothing  to  eat. 
It  is  hammering  itself  into  what  is  left  of  my 
brain  that  we  can't  afford  to  sit  still  and  wait 
for  something  to  turn  up.  If  we  push  on 
down  river  we  may  find  the  canoe  or  the 
wreck  of  it,  and  there  will  surely  be  some 
little  salvage.  I  don't  believe  the  birch-bark 
would  sink,  even  if  it  were  full  of  water." 

117 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"You  are  not  able  to  push  on/'  she  inter- 
posed quickly.  "As  it  is,  you  can  hardly 
hold  your  head  up." 

"I  can  do  whatever  it  is  needful  to  do,"  he 
declared,  unconsciously  giving  her  a  glimpse 
of  the  strong  thread  in  the  rather  loosely 
woven  fabric  of  his  character.  "I  have  al- 
ways been  able  to  do  what  I  had  to  do.  Let's 


start  out  at  once." 


With  a  couple  of  firebrands  for  torches 
they  set  out  down  the  river  bank,  following 
the  stream  closely  and  keeping  a  sharp  look- 
out for  the  wreck.  Before  they  had  gone 
very  far,  however,  the  blinding  headache 
got  in  its  work,  and  Prime  began  to  stumble. 
It  was  at  Lucetta's  insistence  that  they 
made  another  halt  and  gave  up  the  search 
for  the  night. 

"It  is  no  manner  of  use,"  she  argued. 
"You  are  not  able  to  go  on;  and,  besides, 
we  can't  see  well  enough  to  make  sure  that 
we  are  not  passing  the  thing  we  are  looking 
for.  We  had  much  better  stop  right  where 
we  are  and  wait  for  daylight." 

The  halt  was  made  in  a  small  opening  in 
the  wood,  and  the  young  woman  persuaded 

118 


Horrors 

Prime  to  lie  down  while  she  gathered  the 
material  for  another  camp-fire.  Almost  as 
soon  as  it  was  kindled  Prime  dropped  off  into 
a  heavy  sleep.  Lucetta  provided  fuel  to 
last  through  the  night,  and  then  sat  down 
with  her  back  to  a  tree,  determined  to  stay 
awake  and  watch  with  the  sick  man. 


119 


XI 

"A    CRACKLING    OF  THORNS " 

THOUGH  she  had  formed  her  resolution 
with  a  fair  degree  of  self-reliance,  Lucetta 
Millington  soon  found  that  she  had  set  her- 
self a  task  calling  for  plenty  of  fortitude  and 
endurance.  Beyond  the  circle  of  firelight 
the  shadows  of  the  forest  gloomed  forbid- 
dingly. They  had  seen  but  little  of  the  wild 
life  of  the  woods  in  their  voyagings  thus  far, 
but  now  it  seemed  to  be  stirring  uneasily 
on  all  sides  of  the  lonely  camp-fire. 

Once  some  large-hoofed  animal  went  crash- 
ing through  the  underbrush  toward  the  river; 
and  again  there  were  other  hoof-beats  stopping 
abruptly  at  a  little  distance  from  the  clearing. 
Lucetta,  shading  her  eyes  from  the  glow  of 
the  fire,  saw  two  gleaming  disks  of  light 
shining  in  the  blackness  of  the  background- 
ing forest.  Her  reason  told  her  that  they 
were  the  eyes  of  the  animal;  that  the  un- 
nerving apparition  was  probably  a  deer  halted 
and  momentarily  fascinated  by  the  sight  of 

1 20 


"A  Crackling  of  Thorns" 

the  fire.  But  the  incident  was  none  the  less 
alarming  to  the  town-bred  young  woman. 

Later  there  were  softly  padding  footfalls, 
and  these  gave  her  a  sharper  shock.  She 
knew  next  to  nothing  about  the  fauna  of 
the  northern  woods,  nor  did  she  have  the 
comforting  knowledge  that  the  largest  of 
the  American  cats,  the  panther,  rarely  at- 
tacks a  human  being  unless  wounded,  or 
under  the  crudest  stress  of  winter  hunger. 
Breathlessly  she  listened  and  watched,  and 
presently  she  saw  the  eyes  of  the  padding 
intruder  glowing  like  balls  of  lambent  green 
fire.  Whereupon  it  was  all  she  could  do  to 
keep  from  shrieking  frantically  and  waking 
her  companion. 

After  the  terrifying  green  eyes  had  van- 
ished it  occurred  to  her  to  wonder  why  they 
had  seen  and  heard  so  little  of  the  night 
prowlers  at  their  former  camps.  The  reason 
was  not  far  to  seek.  Days  well  filled  with 
toil  and  stirring  excitement  had  been  fol- 
lowed by  nights  when  sleep  came  quickly 
and  was  too  sound  to  be  disturbed  by  a«y- 
thing  short  of  a  cataclysm. 

As  midnight  drew  near,   Prime  begaa  to 

121 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

mutter  disconnectedly.  Lucetta  did  not  know 
whether  he  was  talking  in  his  sleep  or  whether 
he  had  become  delirious  again,  but  at  all 
events  this  new  development  immeasurably 
increased  the  uncanny  weirdness  of  the  night- 
watch.  Though  many  of  the  vaporings  were 
mere  broken  sentences  without  rhyme  or 
reason,  enough  of  them  were  sufficiently 
clear  to  shadow  forth  a  sketchy  story  of 
Prime's  life. 

Lucetta  listened  because  she  could  not 
well  help  it,  being  awake  and  alert  and  near 
at  hand.  Part  of  the  time  Prime  babbled 
of  his  boyhood  on  the  western  New  York 
farm,  and  she  gathered  that  some  of  the 
bits  were  curious  survivals  of  doubtless  long- 
forgotten  talks  with  his  grandfather.  Break- 
ing abruptly  with  these  earlier  scenes,  the 
wandering  underthought  would  skip  to  the 
mystery,  charging  it  now  to  Watson  Grider 
and  again  calling  it  a  blessed  miracle.  With 
another  abrupt  change  the  babbler  would 
be  in  Europe,  living  over  again  his  trampings 
in  the  Tyrol,  which,  it  seemed,  had  been 
taken  in  the  company  of  an  older  man,  a 
German,  who  was  a  Heidelberg  professor. 

122 


"A  Crackling  of  Thorns" 

Farther  along,  after  an  interval  of  silence 
in  which  Lucetta  began  to  hope  that  the 
talkative  fit  had  passed,  Prime  broke  out 
again — this  time  waxing  eloquent  over  his 
struggles  in  New  York  as  a  beginner  in  the 
writing  trade.  Here  there  were  revelations 
to  make  her  sorry  that  she  was  obliged  to 
listen;  for  years,  it  seemed,  the  fight  had 
gone  discouragingly  hard  with  him;  there 
had  been  times  when  he  had  had  to  choose 
between  giving  up  in  defeat  or  going  hungry. 

Lucetta  pieced  together  a  pitiful  little 
story  of  this  starving  time.  Some  one — 
once  Prime  called  the  some  one  Grider,  and 
later  gave  him  another  name — had  tempted 
the  struggler  with  an  offer  of  a  comfortable 
income,  the  single  condition  precedent  being 
an  abandonment  of  the  literary  fight.  Prime's 
mutterings  made  the  outcome  plain  for  the 
listener  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  camp-fire : 
"No,  I  couldn't  sell  soap;  it's  honest  enough, 
no  doubt — and  decent  enough — everybody 
ought  to  use  soap.  But  I've  set  my  hand  to 
the  plough — no,  that  isn't  it.  ...  Oh, 
dammit,  Peter,  you  know  what  I  mean;  I 
can't  turn  back;  that  is  the  one  thing  I've 

123 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

never  learned  how  to  do.  No,  and  I  can't 
take  your  money  as  a  loan;  that  would  be 
only  another  way  of  confessing  defeat.  No, 
by  George,  I  won't  go  out  to  dinner  with 
you,  either ! " 

Lucetta  wept  a  little  in  sheer  sympathy. 
Her  own  experience  had  not  been  too  easy. 
Left  an  orphan  while  she  was  still  too  young 
to  teach,  she  knew  what  it  meant  to  set  the 
heart  upon  a  definite  end  and  to  strive  through 
thick  and  thin  to  reach  it.  She  was  relieved 
when  Prime  began  to  talk  less  coherently  of 
other  incidents  in  his  life  in  the  great  metrop- 
olis. There  were  more  references  to  Grider, 
and  at  last  something  that  figured  as  Prime's 
part  in  a  talk  with  the  barbarian.  ''Yes, 
by  Jove,  Watson,  the  scoundrels  tried  to 
pull  my  leg;  actually  advertised  for  me  in 
the  Herald.  No,  of  course,  I  didn't  fall  for 
it.  I  know  perfectly  well  what  it  was  .  .  . 
same  old  gag  about  the  English  estate  with 
no  resident  heirs  in  sight.  No,  the  ad.  didn't 
say  so,  but  I  know.  What's  that  ? — I'm  a 
liar?  Like  Zeke  I  am!" 

There  were  more  of  the  vaporings,  but 
neither  these  nor  the  young  woman's  anxiety 

124 


"A  Crackling  of  Thorns " 

about  the  wounded  man's  condition  were 
disturbing  enough  at  the  last  to  keep  her 
eyelids  from  drooping  and  her  senses  from 
fluttering  over  the  brink  of  the  sleep  abyss. 
Once  she  bestirred  herself  to  put  more  fuel 
on  the  fire,  but  after  that  the  breeze  blew 
the  mosquitoes  away,  the  warmth  from  the 
upleaping  blaze  added  its  touch,  and  she 
fell  asleep. 

When  she  awoke  the  sun  had  risen  and 
Prime  was  up  and  mending  the  fire. 

"Better,"  he  said  cheerfully,  in  answer 
to  her  instant  question.  "Much  better; 
though  my  head  reminds  me  of  the  day 
when  I  got  the  check  for  my  first  story — 
pretty  badly  swelled,  you  know.  But  after 
I've  had  a  good  cup  of  hot  tea" — he  stopped 
in  mid-career  with  a  wry  laugh.  "Bless  my 
fool  heart !  If  I  hadn't  totally  forgotten  that 
we  haven't  any  tea  or  anything  else !  And 
here  I've  been  up  a  quarter  of  an  hour  and 
more,  trying  to  get  a  good  cooking-fire 
started !  Where  were  we  when  we  left  off 
last  night?" 

"We  had  set  out  to  search  for  the  wreck 
of  the  canoe,"  she  explained,  rising  to  stand 

"5 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

before  the  fire.  "We  came  this  far,  and 
concluded  it  was  no  use  trying  to  go  on  in 
the  dark.  You  were  pretty  badly  off,  too." 

"It's  coming  back  to  me,  a  little  at  a  time 
and  often,  as  the  cat  remarked  when  it  ate 
the  grindstone,"  he  went  on,  determined  to 
make  her  smile  if  it  were  within  the  bounds 
of  possibility.  He  knew  she  must  have  had 
a  bad  night  of  it,  and  the  brightness  of  the 
gray  eyes  told  him  that  even  now  she  was 
not  very  far  from  tears.  "Don't  cry,"  he 
added  abruptly;  "it's  all  over  now." 

Her  laugh  was  the  sort  that  harbors  next 
door  to  pathos. 

"I'm  hungry!"  she  said  plaintively.  "We 
had  no  dinner  yesterday,  and  no  supper  last 
night,  and  there  doesn't  seem  to  be  any  very 
brilliant  prospect  for  breakfast  this  morn- 
ing." 

Prime  put  his  hand  to  his  bruised  head  as 
if  to  satisfy  himself  that  it  was  all  there. 

"Haven't  you  ever  gone  without  a  meal 
before  for  the  raw  reason  that  you  couldn't 
get  it  ?"  he  asked. 

"Not  since  I  can  remember." 

"I  have;  and  it's  bad  medicine — mighty 
126 


"A  Crackling  of  Thorns'5 

bad  medicine.  We'll  put  the  fire  out  and 
move  on.  While  there's  life  there's  hope; 
and  our  hope  this  morning  is  that  we  are 
going  to  find  the  wreck  of  that  canoe.  Let's 
hike." 

They  set  out  courageously,  keeping  close 
to  the  bank  of  the  river  and  scanning  every 
eddy  and  backwater  as  they  moved  along. 
For  this  cause  their  progress  was  slow,  and 
it  was  nearly  or  quite  noon  when  they  came 
to  a  quiet  reach  in  the  river,  a  placid  pond 
with  great  trees  overhanging  its  margins  and 
wide  stretches  of  reeds  and  bulrushes  grow- 
ing in  the  shallows.  And  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  pond-like  expanse  and  apparently 
grounded  among  the  bulrushes  they  saw  their 
canoe.  It  was  bottom  side  up  with  care, 
and  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  river;  also 
they  knew  that  its  lading,  if  any  of  this  had 
survived  the  runaway  flight,  must  be  soaked 
and  sodden.  But  the  triumphant  fact  re- 
mained— the  canoe  was  found. 


127 


XII 

IN    SEARCH   OF   AN   ANCESTOR 

FOR  a  moment  neither  of  them  spoke. 
Then  Prime  broke  out  in  a  sardonic  laugh. 

"That  is  a  heavenly  prospect  for  dinner, 
supper,  breakfast,  and  dinner  all  rolled  into 
one,  isn't  it,  now  ?  If  there  is  anything  left 
in  the  canoe,  it's  soaked  to  a  pulp — to  say 
nothing  of  the  fact  that  we  can't  get  to  it. 
How  are  we  going  to  raft  ourselves  over  there 
without  the  axe  ? " 

Lucetta  went  down  to  the  margin  of  the 
pond-like  reach  and  tested  its  depth  with  a 
tossed  stone. 

"It  is  deep,"  she  said,  "swimming-deep. 
The  shallows  must  be  all  on  the  other  side." 

"I'll  go  down-stream  a  piece  and  see  if 
there  isn't  some  place  where  I  can  wade," 
Prime  offered.  But  at  this  she  shook  her 
head. 

"We  passed  out  of  all  the  wading  depths 
days  and  days  ago.  If  you  will  make  a  fire, 
I'll  swim  over  and  get  the  canoe." 

128 


In  Search  of  an  Ancestor 

Prime  had  a  world  of  objections  to  offer 
to  this,  and  he  flung  them  into  the  breach 
one  after  another.  It  was  no  woman's  job. 
The  water  was  cold,  and  it  would  be  a  long 
swim — for  a  guess,  not  less  than  a  hundred 
yards;  she  had  gone  without  food  so  long 
that  she  was  not  fit  for  it;  if  she  should  try 
it  and  fail,  he  would  have  to  go  in  after  her, 
and  that  would  mean  suicide  for  both  of 
them. 

She  heard  him  through  with  a  quaint  little 
lip-curl  of  amusement  at  his  fertility  in  ob- 
stacle raising,  and  at  the  end  calmly  fished 
the  remains  of  his  handkerchief  out  of  his 
pocket  and  bound  it  about  her  head. 

"Another  attack  of  the  undying  protective 
instinct,"  she  retorted  light-heartedly.  "You 
go  on  and  make  the  fire  and  I'll  save  the 
wreck,  or  what  there  is  left  of  it."  Where- 
upon she  walked  away  up-stream,  losing 
herself  shortly  for  Prime  in  a  thicket  beyond 
the  first  bend  of  the  river  above. 

Prime  fell  to  work  gathering  fuel,  feeling 
less  like  a  man  than  at  any  time  since  the 
voyage  had  begun.  It  stabbed  his  amour- 
propre  to  the  heart  to  be  compelled  to  let 

129 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

her  take  the  man's  part  while  he  did  the 
squaw's.  But  there  seemed  to  be  no  help 
for  it. 

While  he  was  kindling  the  fire  he  heard 
a  plunge,  and  a  little  later  saw  the  coifed 
head  making  diagonally  across  from  the 
upper  bend  toward  the  canoe.  She  was 
swimming  easily  with  the  side  stroke,  and 
he  could  see  the  rhythmical  flash  and  swing 
of  a  white  arm  as  she  made  the  overhand 
reach.  Then  he  dutifully  turned  his  back 
and  gave  his  entire  attention  to  the  fire- 
making. 

When  he  looked  again  she  had  righted  the 
canoe  and  was  coming  across  with  it,  swim- 
ming and  pushing  it  ahead  of  her.  At  a 
little  distance  from  the  shore  she  called  to 
him:  "Take  it;  it's  all  yours" — giving  the 
birch-bark  a  final  shove.  "I'll  be  with  you 
in  a  few  minutes."  And  with  that  she  turned 
off  and  swam  away  up-stream  to  her  dressing- 
thicket. 

Prime  gave  her  time  to  disappear  and 
then  went  to  draw  the  canoe  out  on  the 
bank  and  to  begin  an  inventory  of  the  losses. 
Thanks  to  the  care  they  had  taken  in  tying 

130 


In  Search  of  an  Ancestor 

everything  in,  nothing  was  missing  save  the 
paddles.  Such  food  as  was  still  in  the  original 
tin  was  undamaged,  but  the  meat  was  soaked 
and  the  flour  and  meal  were  soggy  masses 
of  paste.  Prime  was  dismayed.  The  small 
stock  of  potatoes  would  not  last  forever,  and 
neither  would  the  canned  vegetables.  They 
were  not  yet  backwoodsmen  enough  to  live 
upon  meat  alone;  and  another  and  crowning 
misfortune  was  the  loss  of  the  salt. 

Prime  was  lamenting  over  the  wet  salt- 
sack  and  trying  to  save  some  little  portion 
of  the  precious  condiment  when  Lucetta 
came  on  the  scene,  looking  as  bright  and 
fresh  as  the  proverbial  field-flower  after  her 
plunge  and  swim,  and  took  over  the  culinary 
problem.  Fortunately,  they  still  had  the 
salt  pork,  and  the  pretty  cuisiniere  issued 
her  orders  promptly. 

"Find  some  nice  clean  pieces  of  birch 
bark  and  spread  this  flour  and  meal  out  so 
that  it  will  dry  before  the  fire,"  she  directed; 
and  while  he  was  doing  that  and  hanging 
the  blankets  and  tent  canvas  up  to  drip  and 
dry,  she  opened  a  tin  of  baked  beans  and 
made  another  of  the  triumphant  stews  of 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

jerked  deer  meat  and  potatoes  seasoned  with 
a  bit  of  the  salt  pork.  Upon  these  two  dishes 
they  presently  feasted  royally,  making  up 
for  the  three  lost  meals,  and  missing  the 
bread  only  because  they  didn't  have  it. 

"I  have  settled  one  thing  in  my  own 
mind,"  Prime  declared,  while  he  was  as- 
siduously drying  a  leaf  of  the  soaked  tobacco 
for  the  after-dinner  smoke.  "If  I  am  ever 
cast  away  again,  Fm  going  to  make  dead 
sure  that  I  have  a  Domestic  Science  expert 
for  a  fellow  sufferer.  Lucetta,  you  are  simply 
great  when  it  comes  to  making  something 
out  of  nothing.  What  are  we  going  to  do 
with  this  flour-and-meal  pudding  ? " 

"We  are  going  to  dry  it  carefully  and  then 
grind  it  up  again  on  a  flat  stone  and  go  on 
as  before,"  was  the  cheerful  reply.  "That 
is  my  part  of  it,  and  yours  will  be  a  good 
bit  harder;  you  will  have  to  make  some 
new  paddles  and  contrive  some  way  to  patch 
that  big  hole  in  the  canoe." 

Prime  laughed  hilariously.  His  head  was 
still  aching,  but  the  disaster  had  fallen  so 
far  short  of  the  ultimate  fatalities  that  the 
small  discomforts  were  as  nothing. 

132 


In  Search  of  an  Ancestor 

"I  can  imagine  both  the  paddles  and  the 
patch,"  he  boasted.  "It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  or  not  I  can  turn  them  into  service- 
able realities." 

While  the  dunnage  was  drying  and  Lucetta 
was  regrinding  her  flour  and  meal  Indian- 
fashion  on  a  smooth  stone,  Prime  hacked 
manfully  at  a  small  spruce  and  finally  got 
it  down.  It  took  him  the  better  part  of  the 
afternoon  to  split  the  tree  with  wooden 
wedges  and  to  get  out  two  pieces  to  be  hewn 
roughly  with  the  axe  into  the  paddle  shape. 
Over  the  evening  fire  he  whittled  laboriously 
with  the  sharper  of  the  two  hunting-knives, 
and  when  the  knife  grew  dull  he  learned  by 
patient  trial  to  whet  it  on  a  bit  of  stone. 
To  keep  him  company,  Lucetta  had  recourse 
to  the  fish-bone  needle.  Her  clothes  had 
not  come  scathless  out  of  the  cataract  dis- 
aster and  its  aftermath. 

"You  have  one  of  the  best  of  the  good 
qualities,  Donald,"  she  said,  marking  the 
patience  with  which  the  whittling  went  on. 
"You  are  not  afraid  to  buckle  down  to  the 
necessity  and  keep  on  trying." 

*  Patient  continuance  in  well-doing/  "  he 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

quoted,  grinning.  "I  learned  that,  up  one 
side  and  down  the  other,  in  the  writing  trade. 
It  is  about  the  only  thing  that  gets  you  any- 
where." 

"You  had  a  hard  time  making  your  start 
in  the  writing,  didn't  you  ? "  she  offered. 

"When  did  I  ever  tell  you  that  ?" 

"You  told  me  something  about  it  the  first 
day  we  were  together,  and  a  good  bit  more 
last  night." 

"Huh!  Talking  in  my  sleep,  was  I? 
What  did  I  say?" 

"A  lot  of  things;  I  can't  remember  them 
all.  You  talked  about  Mr.  Grider,  and  the 
mystery,  and  the  dead  men,  and  I  don't 
know  what  all." 

"I  didn't  say  anything  about  the  girl,  did  I?" 

"Not  a  word,"  she  returned. 

"For  the  best  possible  reason  on  earth, 
Lucetta:  there  hasn't  been  any  girl.  You 
don't  believe  that,  I  suppose.  You  wouldn't 
believe  it  of  any  man  of  my  age,  and — and 
temperament  ?" 

"Yet  you  said  night  before  last  that  you 
wanted  a  wife  and  children  and  a  home. 
Doesn't  that  presuppose  a  girl  ?" 


In  Search  of  an  Ancestor 

"In  my  case  it  presupposes  a  handsomely 
imaginary  girl;  I'm  great  on  the  imaginary 
things." 

"What  does  she  look  like — this  imaginary 
girl  of  yours?" 

He  glanced  up  from  the  paddle-whittling. 
"Some  day,  when  we  get  back  into  the  world 
again,  I'll  show  you  what  she  looks  like. 
Can  you  wait  until  then  ?" 

"You  don't  leave  me  any  choice." 

"We  ran  off  the  track,"  he  went  on,  after 
a  little  interval  of  silence.  "You  were  telling 
me  what  I  talked  about  last  night." 

"Oh,  yes;  I  have  forgotten  most  of  it, 
as  I  said;  but  along  at  the  last  there  were 
a  good  many  disjointed  things  about  your 
fight  for  recognition.  Once,  I  remember, 
you  were  talking  to  somebody  about  soap." 

Prime's  laugh  was  a  guffaw. 

"I  can  laugh  at  it  now,"  he  chuckled; 
"but  it  was  mighty  binding  at  the  time — 
that  soap  incident.  I  was  down  in  a  hole, 
in  the  very  bottom  of  the  hole.  I  had  written 
a  book  and  couldn't  get  it  published;  couldn't 
get  anybody  to  touch  it  with  a  ten-foot  pole. 
I  had  friends  who  were  willing  to  lend  me 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

money  to  go  on  with,  and  one  who  offered 
me  a  job  writing  advertisements  for  his  soap 
factory.  It  was  horribly  tempting,  but  when 
I  was  built,  the  ability  to  let  go,  even  of  a 
failure,  was  left  out.  So  I  didn't  become  an 
ad.  writer.  What  else  did  I  say?" 

"Oh,  a  lot  of  things  that  didn't  make 
sense;  one  of  them  was  about  an  advertise- 
ment you  said  you  had  seen  in  the  New  York 
Herald.  I  couldn't  make  out  what  it  was; 
something  about  an  English  estate." 

Prime  looked  up  quickly. 

"Isn't  it  odd  how  these  perfectly  incon- 
sequent things  bury  themselves  somewhere 
in  the  human  brain,  to  rise  up  and  sneak 
out  some  time  when  the  bars  happen  to  be 
left  down,"  he  speculated.  "There  was 
such  an  ad.,  and  I  saw  it;  but  I  don't  believe 
I  have  given  it  a  second  thought  from  that 
time  to  this." 

"When  you  spoke  of  it  last  night,  you 
seemed  to  be  telling  Mr.  Grider  about  it. 
Was  it  addressed  to  you  ? " 

"It  was  addressed  to  the  heirs  of  Roger 
Prime,  of  Batavia,  and  Roger  Prime  was 
my  father.  If  I  remember  correctly,  the 

136 


In  Search  of  an  Ancestor 

advertisers  gave  a  Canadian  address — Ot- 
tawa, I  think — and  the  'personal*  was  worded 
in  the  usual  fashion:  'If  the  heirs  of  Roger 
Prime  will  apply' — and  so  on;  you  know 
how  they  go.  It  was  the  old  leg-pull." 

"I  don't  quite  understand,"  she  demurred. 
"What  do  you  mean  by  'leg-pull*  ?" 

"The  swindle  is  so  venerable  that  it  ought 
to  have  whiskers  by  this  time.  Every  once 
in  a  while  a  rumor  leaks  out  that  some  great 
estate  has  been  left  in  England,  or  somewhere 
else  across  the  water,  with  no  native  heirs. 
You  or  I,  if  we  happen  to  have  a  family  name 
that  fits  in,  are  invited  to  contribute  to  a 
sum  which  is  being  made  up  to  pay  the  cost 
of  establishing  the  rights  of  the  American 
descendants,  and  there  you  are.  I  suppose 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  have  been 
buncoed  out  of  credulous  Americans  in  that 
way,  first  and  last." 

"I  wish  you  could  remember  the  Canadian 
address  which  you  say  you  think  was  Ot- 
tawa," rejoined  the  young  woman  reflec- 
tively. 

"Why?" 

"Because  I  saw  in  a  Cleveland  newspaper 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

an  advertisement  of  the  same  nature,  ad- 
dressed to  the  heirs  of  the  body  of  Clarissa 
Millington,  born  Bradford.  Clarissa  Milling- 
ton  was  my  mother.  There  was  no  name 
signed,  but  a  business  address  was  given, 
and  it  was  in  Ottawa." 

"You  have  forgotten  the  address?"  said 
Prime. 

"I  didn't  try  to  remember  it.  I  wrote  it 
down,  and  I  have  it  in  my  luggage  in 
Quebec." 

The  paddle-maker  looked  up  with  an  ac- 
cusing laugh. 

"You  were  planning  to  return  from  Quebec 
by  way  of  Ottawa;  you  were  going  to  give 
those  sharks  some  of  your  hard-earned  teach- 
ing money.  Don't  deny  it." 

"I  can't,"  she  confessed.  "I  meant  to  do 
that  very  thing.  And  I  thought  I  had  plenty 
of  time.  There  was  a  date  limit  set  in  the 
advertisement,  and  it  was  July  thirty-first. 
Do  you  think  it  was  a  swindle  ?" 

"  There  isn't  the  least  doubt  of  it.  Your 
kidnapping  has  saved  you  some  money. 
The  date  limit  was  merely  to  make  you 
hustle.  I  have  seen  the  game  worked  be- 

138 


In  Search  of  an  Ancestor 

fore,  and  it  is  very  plausible.  And  since  it 
is  usually  worked  from  Canada,  a  citizen 
of  the  United  States  has  no  recourse  in  law. 
You  had  a  narrow  escape." 

"We  may  call  it  that,  anyway,"  was  the 
young  woman's  reply.  "The  thirty-first  of 
July  will  probably  be  nothing  more  than  a 
memory  by  the  time  we  find  our  way  back 
to  the  world." 

A  busy  silence  followed  the  dismissal  of 
the  subject,  and  then  Lucetta  began  to  tell 
about  the  various  alarms  she  had  had  during 
the  previous  night.  "All  of  which  goes  to 
prove  that  I  am  still  the  normal  woman," 
she  concluded. 

"You  are  a  heroine,  and  one  of  these  days 
I  mean  to  put  you  in  a  book,"  Prime  threat- 
ened. "You  saved  my  life  yesterday  and 
my  self-respect  to-day;  and  that  is  more 
than  a  man  ought  to  expect  from  the  most 
normal  woman  in  the  world." 

"Your  self-respect  ?" 

"Yes;  you  heard  me  babbling  all  night, 
and  you  have  been  good-hearted  enough  not 
to  report  anything  that  a  man  need  be 
ashamed  of." 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"You  didn't  say  anything  to  be  ashamed 
of,"  she  returned  quickly.  "Most  of  the 
talk  was  about  the  old  farm  near  Batavia; 
that  and  your  grandfather." 

"Grandfather  Bankhead,"  he  mused; 
"they  don't  make  any  finer  characters  now- 
adays than  he  was — or  as  fine." 

"Bankhead?"  she  asked  suddenly;  "was 
that  your  grandfather's  name?" 

"It  was:  Abner  Greenlow  Bankhead.  It 
is  not  such  a  very  usual  name.  Have  you 
ever  heard  it  before  ?" 

"Heard  it?  Why — why,  it  was  my 
mother's  mother's  maiden  name !  She  was 
a  Bankhead,  and  she  married  Josiah  Green- 
low  Bradford !" 

Prime  dropped  both  paddle  and  knife. 

"Well — wouldn't  that  jar  you!"  he  ex- 
claimed. "Can  it  be  possible  that — hold  on 
a  minute;  my  grandfather  had  a  Bankhead 
cousin  who  grew  up  in  the  family,  and  she 
married  and  moved  to  Ohio,  away  along 
back  in  the  other  century.  What  was  your 
grandmother's  Christian  name?" 

"It  was  an  old-fashioned  one — Lorinda. 
I  can  remember  her  indistinctly  as  a  little 

140 


In  Search  of  an  Ancestor 

old  lady  with  white  hair  and  the  brightest 
possible  blue  eyes." 

Prime  was  wagging  his  head  as  one  in  a 
daze.  "It  is  too  wonderful  to  be  true,  Lu- 
cetta!  But  it  must  be  true.  My  grand- 
father's cousin's  name  was  Lorinda,  and  I 
can  remember  seeing  an  oil  portrait  of  her, 
a  horrible  thing  done  by  some  local  artist, 
hanging  in  the  old  farmhouse  at  Batavia. 
I  can't  figure  it  out,  but  the  way  it  is  work- 
ing around,  we  ought  to  be  cousins  of  some 
sort.  Can  you  believe  it  ?" 

The  young  woman  put  her  mending  aside 
to  trace  the  relationship  thoughtfully,  count- 
ing the  generations  on  her  finger-tips.  When 
she  had  finally  determined  to  her  own  satis- 
faction that  they  really  had  a  common  an- 
cestor four  generations  back,  she  laughed. 

"It  is  wonderful,"  she  said;  "almost  too 
wonderful  to  be  true.  But  the  wonder  of 
it  is  completely  overshadowed  by  the  un- 
believable coincidence  which  dropped  us  two, 
cousins  and  descendants  of  that  far-away 
Bankhead,  down  together  on  the  beach  of 
a  forest  lake  in  the  wilds  of  the  Canadian 
backwoods — a  lake  that  neither  of  us  ever 

141 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

saw  or  heard  of  before.     Will  the  mysteries 
never  end  ? " 

"Wait  a  minute;  let's  get  it  straight," 
Prime  interposed.  "We  are  really  cousins, 
aren't  we  ?  Don't  you  figure  it  out  that 
way?" 

"Third  cousins;   yes." 

:t You'll  have  to  show  me,"  he  invited. 
"Genealogy  is  like  Sanskrit  to  me." 

She  proceeded  to  show  him,  and  from  that 
the  talk  drifted  rather  excitedly  into  family 
reminiscences.  After  the  manner  of  people 
who  really  have  ancestors,  neither  of  them 
was  able  to  remember  many  of  the  traditions. 
Prime's  recollections,  indeed,  stopped  short 
with  his  grandfather,  but  Lucetta  knew  a 
little  more  about  the  older  generations,  and 
she  dug  the  individuals  out  one  by  one,  offer- 
ing them  to  Prime  as  spurs  to  further  re- 
memberings. 

"No,  I  don't  remember  anything  about 
Jabez,"  he  said.  "And  Elvira  and  Elmina 
and  John  I  never  heard  mentioned.  Grand- 
father Bankhead  had  no  near  relations  that 
I  know  of  except  his  brother  Jasper  and  his 
cousin  Lorinda,  who  grew  up  with  him." 

142 


In  Search  of  an  Ancestor 

"I  seem  to  remember  something  about 
grandmother's  cousin  Jasper,"  Lucetta  put 
in.  "Didn't  something  happen  to  him — 
something  out  of  the  usual  ? " 

"Yes,"  was  the  prompt  reply.  "He  dis- 
appeared— went  to  the  Far  West  when  he 
was  a  young  man  and  was  never  heard  of 
afterward.  Grandfather  often  wondered  what 
had  become  of  him,  and  in  his  later  years 
spoke  of  him  quite  frequently." 

Lucetta  went  on  with  her  mending,  the 
fish-bone  needle  making  her  progress  primi- 
tively slow.  Prime  got  up  and  strolled  down 
to  the  river-bank.  When  he  returned  he 
went  around  to  her  side  of  the  fire  to  say: 

"I'm  mighty  glad  we  have  found  out  that 
we  are  cousins,  Lucetta;  twice  glad,  for  your 
sake.  It  makes  things  a  bit  easier  for  you, 
doesn't  it?" 

She  did  not  look  up. 

"  Why  should  it  ? "  she  asked  quietly. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know;  we  have  both  been 
throwing  tin  cans  and  brickbats  at  the  con- 
ventions; but  I  haven't  any  idea  that  we 
have  killed  them  off  permanently.  And 
they  die  harder  in  a  woman  than  in  a  man. 

H3 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

We  have  jollied  things  along  pretty  well,  so 
far,  but  that  isn't  saying  that  I  haven't 
known  how  hard  it  must  have  been  for  you. 
As  matters  stand  now,  I  am  your  natural 
protector." 

She  looked  up  with  the  quaint  little  smile 
that  he  had  learned  to  know,  to  interpret, 
and  to  love. 

"What  difference  does  the  relationship 
make,  Donald,  so  long  as  you  are  what  you 
are  ?  And  what  difference  would  it  make  if 
you  happened  to  be  the  other  kind  of  man  ?" 

He  stood  smiling  down  upon  her  with  his 
hands  in  his  pockets. 

:<Your  trust  is  the  most  wonderful  thing 
in  this  world,  Lucetta — and  the  most  beau- 
tiful. I  should  have  to  be  a  much  worse 
man  than  I  have  ever  dared  to  be  to  do  any- 
thing to  spoil  it,"  he  said  slowly,  and  with 
that  he  went  to  set  up  her  sleeping-tent. 


144 


XIII 

AT   CAMP    COUSIN 

PRIME  whittled  through  the  better  part  of 
the  succeeding  forenoon  on  the  paddles,  and 
for  the  midday  bread  Lucetta  tried  her 
domestic-science  hand  upon  the  dried  and 
reground  flour.  Not  to  draw  too  fine  a  com- 
parison, the  paddles  were  the  better  success, 
though  the  bread  was  eatable.  In  the  after- 
noon the  man  of  all  work,  with  Lucetta  for 
consulting  engineer,  tackled  the  broken 
canoe. 

There  was  no  lack  of  materials  with  which 
to  make  the  repairs  if  they  had  only  known 
how  to  use  them.  Attempts  to  sew  a  patch 
of  birch  bark  over  the  hole  with  threads 
drawn  from  the  blanket  were  dismal  failures. 
At  each  of  the  thread  punctures  the  patch 
would  split  and  curl  up  most  perversely; 
and  when  night  came  they  had  succeeded 
only  in  making  a  bad  matter  slightly  worse. 

After  supper  they  put  their  heads  together 
to  become,  if  the  oracles  should  prove  aus- 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

picious,  inventors  in  this  hitherto  untried 
field. 

"If  we  only  had  a  few  drops  of  Indian 
blood  in  us !"  Prime  complained.  "What 
do  you  suppose  they  daub  this  bark  thing 
with  to  make  it  water-tight  ?  It  must  be 
something  they  find  in  the  woods." 

Lucetta  went  over  to  the  canoe,  chipped 
a  bit  of  the  daubing  from  one  of  the  seams, 
and  tasted  it  appraisingly. 

"It  tastes  like  spruce-gum,"  she  offered; 
"do  you  suppose  it  can  be?" 

Prime  ate  a  little  in  his  turn  and  confirmed 
the  guess.  "That  is  about  what  it  is,"  he 
decided.  "The  next  thing  is  to  find  out  how 
they  contrive  to  get  enough  of  it.  I  wonder 
if  they  tap  the  trees  as  we  do  sugar-maples  ?" 

"If  we  could  find  a  tree  that  has  been 
broken,"  Lucetta  suggested.  And  then: 
"How  have  we  managed  to  live  so  long 
without  learning  some  of  these  perfectly 
simple  things,  Cousin  Donald  ?" 

'Too  much  education  and  too  little  in- 
stinct," he  scoffed.  "To-morrow  morning 
I'll  climb  trees  and  become  a  gum-gatherer. 
It  seems  inexpressibly  humbling  to  think 

146 


At  Camp  Cousin 

that  a  small  hole  in  a  piece  of  birch  bark  is 
all  that  prevents  us  from  going  on  our  way 
rejoicing.  Never  mind,  there  is  another 
day  coming,  and  if  there  isn't,  success  or 
failure  won't  make  any  considerable  differ- 
ence to  either  of  us." 

Bright  and  early  the  next  morning  they 
tried  the  spruce-gum  experiment.  Prime 
found  that  he  could  have  plenty  of  it  for 
the  gathering,  and  when  they  had  a  sufficient 
quantity  they  melted  it  in  one  of  the  empty 
vegetable  tins  and  used  it  as  a  glue  with 
which  to  make  the  patch  adhere.  The  result 
was  not  entirely  satisfactory.  The  melted 
gum  hardened  quickly,  but  it  became  so 
brittle  that  a  touch  would  loosen  it. 

"This  is  where  we  set  up  a  laboratory  for 
original  research,"  Lucetta  said,  laughing. 
"I  wonder  if  some  more  cooking  would  do 
it  any  good." 

'The  ruling  passion  strong  in  death,' ' 
Prime    quoted   with   good-natured    sarcasm. 
"You  are  a  born  cook.    Let's  try  it." 

They  tried  it  and  merely  succeeded  in 
making  the  product  still  more  brittle.  They 
then  tried  adding  a  little  grease  from  the 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

fat  pork  to  make  it  more  flexible,  and  that 
ruined  it  completely. 

"Two  civilized  brains,  college-trained  to  a 
piano-polish  finish,  and  not  a  single  workable 
idea  between  them,"  Prime  derided.  "It's 
humiliating — disgusting  ! " 

"The  brains  are  still  available,"  asserted 
the  undaunted  one.  "Go  and  find  some  pine 
pitch  and  we'll  mix  it  with  the  spruce." 

This  experiment  promised  better  success. 
A  gluey  mixture  resulted  that  stuck,  not  only 
to  the  canoe  body  and  the  patch,  but  to  their 
fingers  and  to  everything  it  touched.  In- 
venting still  further,  they  contrived  a  rude 
clamp  to  hold  the  patch  in  place  while  it 
was  drying,  if  by  good  hap  the  glue  would 
consent  to  dry  at  all;  and  with  the  new 
paddles  whittled  and  scraped  into  shape, 
there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  wait  upon 
the  drying  process. 

Prime  spent  the  afternoon  fishing,  with 
the  tackle  found  in  one  of  the  gun-cases,  and 
was  lucky  enough  to  accumulate  a  noble 
string  of  trout.  Lucetta  would  not  say  what 
she  was  going  to  do,  merely  hinting  that 
Prime's  absence  until  supper-time  would  be 

148 


At  Camp  Cousin 

a  boon.  Only  the  buzzard  swinging  in  slow 
circles  overhead  could  have  told  tales  of  the 
doing  after  the  young  woman  had  obtained 
her  meed  of  solitude  in  the  little  glade,  and 
possibly  the  buzzard  had  seen  a  sufficient 
number  of  blanketed  women  washing  clothes 
at  a  river  brink  not  to  be  unduly  stirred  at 
the  sight. 

Later,  Prime  came  in  to  exhibit  his  string 
of  fish  with  true  sportsman's  pride,  and 
again  they  feasted  royally,  forgetting  their 
late  tribulations,  and  looking  forward  half- 
regretfully  to  a  resumption  of  their  journey 
on  the  morrow. 

"It  is  astonishing  how  rapidly  one  can 
revert  to  the  cave-man  type,"  was  Prime's 
phrasing  of  the  regret.  "I  have  been  a 
person  of  pavements  and  cement  walks  all 
my  life,  as  I  suppose  you  have — of  the  paved 
streets  and  all  that  they  stand  for.  Yet  I 
shall  go  back  to  them  with  something  like 
reluctance.  Shan't  you?" 

She  did  not  reply  to  the  direct  question. 

"You  speak  as  if  you  had  some  assurance 
that  we  are  approaching  the  pavements. 
Have  you  ?" 

149 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"A  bare  hint.  I  fished  along  the  river 
for  about  a  mile  down-stream,  spying  out 
the  land — or  the  water — as  I  went,  for  future 
reference.  We  can't  claim  this  region  by 
the  right  of  discovery.  Somebody  has  been 
here  before  us." 

"You  didn't  find  a  house?"  she  ventured. 

"Oh,  no;  nothing  like  that.  But  I  did 
find  the  stump  of  a  tree,  and  the  tree  had 
been  felled  with  an  axe.  It  wasn't  recently; 
the  stump  was  old  and  moss-grown.  But  it 
was  axe  work  just  the  same." 

She  laughed  softly. 

"I  don't  know  whether  to  be  glad  or  sorry, 
Donald;  for  myself,  I  mean.  Of  course,  you 
want  to  get  back  to  your  work." 

"Do  I  ?"  he  inquired.  "I  suppose  I  ought 
to  want  to.  I  left  a  book  half  finished  in  my 
New  York  attic." 

"How  could  you  do  that  ?  I  should  think 
such  work  would  be  ruined  by  having  a 
vacation  come  along  and  cut  it  in  two." 

"I  was  sick  of  it,"  he  confessed  frankly. 
"It  was  another  pen  picture  of  the  arti- 
ficialities, and  I  shall  never  finish  it  now. 
I'll  write  a  better  one." 

150 


At  Camp  Cousin 

"Staging  it  in  a  Canadian  forest?" 

"Staging  it  among  the  realities,  at  least. 
And  there  shall  be  a  real  woman  this  time." 

In  his  new  character  of  cousin-in-authority, 
Prime  sent  Lucetta  early v  to  bed  to  catch 
up  on  her  arrears  of  sleep.  After  she  had  dis- 
appeared behind  the  curtains  of  the  small 
shelter-tent,  he  sat  for  a  long  time  before 
the  fire  smoking  the  rank  tobacco  and  letting 
his  thoughts  rove  at  will  through  the  mazes 
of  the  strange  adventure  which  had  befallen 
him  and  this  distant  cousin,  of  whose  very 
existence  he  had  been  ignorant. 

More  and  more  the  mazes  perplexed  him, 
and  the  coincidences,  if  they  were  coin- 
cidences, began  to  verge  upon  the  fantastic 
or  the  miraculous.  Was  it  by  accident  or 
design  that  they  had  both  chanced  to  be  in 
Quebec  at  the  same  time  ?  If  the  plot  were 
of  Grider's  concocting,  did  the  barbarian 
know  of  the  cousinship  beforehand  ?  Prime 
was  charitable  enough  to  hope  that  he  did. 
It  made  the  brutal  joke — if  it  were  a  joke — 
a  little  less  criminal  to  suppose  that  Grider 
knew  of  the  relationship. 

Still,  it  was  all  vastly  incredible  on  any 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

joking  hypothesis.  Taking  the  most  lenient 
view  of  it — that  Grider  had  pre-arranged  the 
assault  upon  their  liberty  and  had  hired  the 
two  half-breeds  to  pick  them  up  and  convoy 
them  out  of  the  wilderness — it  was  unbe- 
lievable that  the  barbarous  one,  with  all  of 
his  known  disregard  for  the  common  hu- 
manities where  his  Homeric  sense  of  humor 
was  involved,  would  have  turned  them  over 
to  the  tender  mercies  of  two  semi-savages 
whose  character  had  been  sufficiently  dem- 
onstrated by  the  manner  of  their  death. 

"It  simply  cant  have  been  Watson 
Grider,"  Prime  mused  over  his  sixth  cigarette 
— he  was  rolling  them  now  in  the  label  paper 
of  the  vegetable  tins,  frugally  soaked  off 
and  saved.  "If  it  had  been  his  joke,  he 
wouldn't  have  left  it  up  in  the  air;  he  would 
have  followed  along  to  get  the  good  of  it. 
But  if  it  isn't  Grider,  who  is  it,  and  what  is 
it  all  about?" 

The  riddle  always  worked  around  thus 
to  the  same  tormenting  question,  with  no 
hint  of  an  answer;  and,  as  many  times  be- 
fore, Prime  was  obliged  to  leave  it  hanging, 
like  Mohammed's  coffin,  between  heaven 

152 


At  Camp  Cousin 

and  earth.  But  when  he  renewed  the  fire 
and  rolled  himself  in  his  blankets  for  the 
night,  he  was  still  casting  about  for  some 
means  of  bringing  it  to  earth. 

Figuring  it  out  afterward,  he  was  certain 
that  he  could  not  have  been  asleep  for  more 
than  an  hour  or  two  before  he  was  awakened, 
with  the  echo  of  a  noise  like  volley-firing  of 
i;ome  sort  still  ringing  in  his  ears.  His  first 
impulse  was  to  spring  up,  but  the  second, 
which  was  the  one  he  obeyed,  was  more  in 
keeping  with  the  new  character  development. 
Deftly  freeing  himself  from  the  blanket  wrap- 
pings, he  reached  over  to  make  sure  that  one 
of  the  guns  could  be  caught  up  quickly,  and 
lay  quiet. 

For  some  little  time  nothing  happened, 
vand  the  night  silence  of  the  forest  was  un- 
disturbed. Just  as  he  was  beginning  to 
think  that  it  had  been  the  mosquitoes,  and 
not  a  noise,  which  had  awakened  him,  and 
was  about  to  get  up  and  renew  the  smudge 
which  he  had  made  to  windward  before 
turning  in,  he  heard  cautious  footsteps  as 
of  some  one  approaching  from  the  direction 
of  the  river. 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

The  measured  tread  assured  him  that  the 
footfalls  were  human,  and  his  hold  tightened 
mechanically  upon  the  grip  of  the  gun-stock. 
By  this  time  he  was  thinking  quite  clearly, 
and  he  told  himself  that  the  militant  pre- 
caution was  doubtless  unnecessary;  that 
there  was  little  chance  that  the  approaching 
intruder — any  intruder  who  would  be  at- 
tracted by  the  light  of  the  camp-fire — would 
be  unfriendly.  Yet  it  was  the  part  of  pru- 
dence to  be  prepared. 

After  a  moment  or  two  he  was  able  to 
note  that  the  approaching  footsteps  were 
growing  more  cautious.  At  this  he  rolled 
over  by  imperceptible  inchings  to  face  toward 
the  river,  drawing  the  gun  with  him.  It 
was  useless  to  try  to  penetrate  the  black 
shadows  of  the  background.  The  fire  had 
died  down  to  a  mass  of  glowing  embers,  its 
bedtime  replenishing  of  dried  wood  blazing 
up  fitfully  only  now  and  then  to  illumine  a 
slightly  wider  circle.  Prime  saw  nothing, 
and,  for  a  time  after  the  footfalls  ceased, 
heard  nothing.  But  the  next  manifestation 
was  startling  enough.  At  a  moment  when 
he  was  beginning  to  wonder  if  his  imagina- 
tion had  been  playing  tricks  on  him,  he  heard 


At  Camp  Cousin 

a  curious  ripping  sound  coming,  this  time, 
from  behind  the  inverted  canoe. 

Silently  he  rose  to  his  knees  with  the  rifle 
held  low.  For  shelter,  in  case  of  a  shower, 
the  provisions  had  been  placed  under  the 
inverted  birch-bark,  and  he  decided  instantly 
that  the  intruder  was  trying  to  steal  them. 
Not  wishing  to  alarm  Lucetta,  he  got  upon 
his  feet  and  walked  toward  the  canoe,  mean- 
ing to  put  the  man  behind  it  between  him- 
self and  the  firelight. 

The  manoeuvre  was  never  completed.  Be- 
fore he  had  taken  half  a  dozen  steps  a  blind- 
ing flashlight  was  turned  upon  him  from 
behind  the  canoe,  and  it  stopped  him  as 
suddenly  as  if  the  dazzling  radiance  had 
been  a  volley  from  a  machine-gun.  But 
the  stopping  shock  was  only  momentary. 
Dashing  forward  around  the  end  of  the 
canoe,  he  had  a  glimpse  of  a  big-bodied  man 
in  a  golf  cap  and  sweater  crashing  his  way 
through  the  undergrowth  toward  the  river, 
and  promptly  gave  chase. 

"Grider!— Watson!"  he  called,  but  there 
was  no  reply.  The  intruder,  as  he  ran,  had 
the  benefit  of  his  flashlight;  Prime  could 
see  the  momentary  gleams  as  the  runner 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

took  a  diagonal  course  which  would  bring 
him  out  a  hundred  yards  down-stream  from 
a  point  directly  opposite  the  camp-fire. 

Prime  collided  with  a  tree,  stumbled  and 
fell,  and  sprang  up  to  call  again.  The  re- 
treating footfalls  were  no  longer  audible, 
but  now  there  was  another  cacophony  of 
noise — the  sputtering  exhausts  of  a  motor- 
boat — and  Prime  reached  the  river-bank 
in  time  to  see  the  dark  shape  of  the  power- 
driven  craft  losing  itself  in  the  starlight  in 
its  swift  rush  down  the  river. 

In  the  first  flush  of  his  rage  at  what  figured 
as  a  second  heartless  desertion,  Prime  was 
strongly  tempted  to  open  fire  on  the  retreat- 
ing motor-boat  and  its  occupant.  This  was 
purely  a  cave-man  prompting,  and  before  it 
could  translate  itself  into  action  the  oppor- 
tunity was  gone.  When  the  motor-boat 
had  disappeared,  losing  itself  to  sight  and 
sound,  the  breathless  pursuer  went  back  to 
his  blankets,  swearing  gloomily  at  the  spite- 
ful chance  which  had  opened  the  door  of 
misfortune  by  making  him  a  college  class- 
mate of  one  Watson  Grider. 


156 


XIV 

OF   THE    NAME    OF    BANDISH 

THE  next  morning  Prime  waited  until 
after  breakfast  before  telling  Lucetta  about 
the  visit  of  the  intruder,  the  postponement 
basing  itself  upon  a  very  natural  disinclina- 
tion to  re-align  himself,  even  constructively, 
with  such  a  brutal  humorist  as  Watson 
Grider.  Indeed,  when  he  told  the  story,  he 
omitted  to  mention  the  barbarian's  name; 
would  never  have  mentioned  it  if  Lucetta 
had  not  pushed  him  into  a  corner. 

"You  say  you  saw  the  man;  was  it  a 
stranger,  or  some  one  you  knew?"  she  ques- 
tioned. 

"I  couldn't  be  sure,"  Prime  evaded.  "The 
fire  wasn't  burning  very  brightly,  and  he 
had  just  blinded  me  with  his  flashlight." 

The  gray  eyes  were  regarding  him  calmly. 

"It  is  to  be  hoped,  Cousin  Donald,  that 
you  will  never  have  to  fib  yourself  out  of  a 
real  difficulty.  You  prevaricate  so  clumsily, 
you  know." 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"I  wasn't  lying/'  he  protested;  "really, 
you  know,  I  couldn't  be  sure." 

"But  you  thought  you  recognized  him." 

"Yes,  I  did,"  he  admitted  doggedly.  "I 
didn't  mean  to  tell  you,  but  I  fancy  it  doesn't 
make  any  great  difference  now.  It  was 
Grider,  of  course." 

"You  are  sure  ?" 

"I  have  just  said  that  I  wasn't  sure.  I 
didn't  see  his  face.  But  I  saw  a  golf  cap  and 
a  sweater,  and  Grider  wears  both  upon  any 
and  all  occasions;  he  has  even  been  accused 
of  sleeping  in  them." 

"But  why  should  he  come  here  like  that 
and  then  run  away  again  ?" 

"He  wanted  to  find  out  how  his  execrable 
joke  was  getting  along,  of  course !  I  had  a 
mind  to  fire  at  him  after  he  got  into  the 
boat,  and  I  wish  now  that  I  had.  You  didn't 
hear  any  of  the  noise  ?" 

"Not  a  sound."  They  had  taken  the 
cooking  utensils  down  to  the  river  edge  to 
wash  them,  and  Lucetta  scoured  for  a  silent 
half  minute  on  the  skillet  before  she  picked 
the  one  comforting  grain  of  assurance  out 
of  the  midnight  adventure.  "We  ought  to 

158 


Of  the  Name  of  Bandish 

be  obliged  to  this  outrageous  friend  of  yours 
for  one  thing,  anyway,"  she  commented. 
"He  has  told  us  that  there  are  no  more 
rapids  to  be  shot.  If  he  could  come  up  the 
river  in  a  motor-boat,  we  can  go  down  it 
safely  in  a  canoe." 

"That  is  so,"  said  Prime;  "I  hadn't 
thought  of  that.  I  wonder  if  our  patch  is 
sticking  all  right.  Suppose  we  go  and  see." 

They  went  to  look,  and  what  they  saw 
struck  them  both  dumb.  The  clamped  patch 
was  still  in  place,  but  a  glance  at  the  up- 
turned canoe  bottom  showed  them  what 
the  midnight  marauder  had  done  and  ex- 
plained for  Prime  the  cause  of  the  ripping 
noise  he  had  heard.  For  a  distance  fully 
one-third  of  its  length  the  thin  sheathing 
of  the  canoe  had  been  cut  as  if  with  the 
slashing  blow  of  a  sharp  knife. 

Prime  was  the  first  to  find  speech,  and 
what  he  said  would  have  kindled  a  fire  under 
wet  wood.  Then  he  remembered  and  made 
gritting  amends.  "I  beg  your  pardon;  I 
couldn't  help  it,  Lucetta.  I'm  not  taken 
that  way  very  often,  but  I  should  have  blown 
up  like  a  rotten  boiler  if  I  couldn't  have  re- 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

lieved  the  pressure.  Did  you  ever  hear  of 
such  an  infernally  idiotic  scoundrel  in  all 
your  life  ?  I  wish  to  gracious  I'd  had  the 
courage  of  my  convictions  and  turned  loose 
on  him  with  the  gun !  He  deserves  to  be 
shot!" 

Lucetta  was  examining  the  damaged  canoe 
bottom  more  closely.  "But  why?"  she  pro- 
tested. "Why  should  he  follow  us  up  so 
vindictively,  Donald  ?  Surely  it  has  passed 
all  the  limits  of  any  kind  of  a  joke  by  this 
time." 

"Of  a  joke? — yes;  I  should  say  so!  I 
hate  to  think  it  of  him,  Lucetta — I  do  for 
a  fact.  If  I  hadn't  seen  him  I  wouldn't 
believe  it  was  Watson;  but  seeing  is  be- 
lieving." 

"Not  always,"  was  the  reflective  dissent. 
And  then:  "This  is  the  work  of  a  spiteful 
enemy,  Donald;  not  that  of  any  friend, 
however  harebrained.  It  is  the  work  of 
some  one  who  has  a  particular  object  in 
keeping  us,  from  getting  back  to  civiliza- 


tion." 


"We  have  been  over  all  that  ground  until 
it  is  worn  out,"  Prime  broke  in  impatiently. 

160 


Of  the  Name  of  Bandish 

"It  is  Grider;  it  can't  be  anybody  else; 
and  I  wish  I  had  potted  him  while  I  had  the 
chance.  But  that  is  a  back  number  now. 
The  mischief  is  done  and  we  must  repair  it 
if  we  can.  Get  your  glue-pot  ready  and  I'll 
go  and  hunt  for  some  more  of  the  sticky 
stuff." 

Lucetta  was  laughing  silently. 

"We  are  so  humanly  inconsistent — both 
of  us!"  she  commented.  "Yesterday  we 
were  almost  willing  to  be  sorry  because  our 
woods  idyll  couldn't  last  forever;  and  now 
we  are  ready  to  draw  and  quarter  Mr.  Grider 
— or  whoever  did  this — because  it  makes  the 
idyll  last  a  few  days  longer." 

It  took  them  the  better  part  of  the  day 
to  patch  the  knife-gash,  and,  though  the 
other  patch  seemed  to  be  holding  satisfac- 
torily, they  were  doubtful  of  the  results  in 
the  more  serious  hurt.  It  was  impossible 
to  devise  any  clamp  for  the  greater  rent, 
but  they  did  their  best,  overlaying  the  fresh 
patches  with  clean  sheets  of  the  bark  and 
weighting  the  whole  down  with  flat  stones 
carried  laboriously  from  the  river  brink. 

That  night  Prime  slept  with  one  eye  open 
161 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

and  with  both  guns  where  he  could  lay  his 
hands  upon  them  quickly.  Somewhile  past 
midnight  he  got  up  and  built  a  small  fire 
beyond  the  canoe  as  another  measure  of 
safety,  locking  the  stable  carefully  after 
the  horse  had  been  stolen.  When  he  went 
back  to  his  blankets  he  found  Lucetta  up 
and  sitting  under  the  turned-up  flap  of  the 
shelter-tent. 

"Did  you  hear  anything?"  she  inquired. 

He  shook  his  head.  "No;  I  thought  I'd 
light  up  a  little  more  so  that  we  couldn't 
be  stalked  again  as  we  were  last  night." 

"You  are  losing  too  much  sleep.  Let  me 
have  one  of  the  guns  and  I'll  keep  watch 
for  a  while." 

"What  could  you  do  with  a  gun  ?"  he  de- 
manded gloomily. 

"I  can  at  least  make  a  noise  and  waken 
you  if  needful." 

There  was  no  sleep  for  either  of  them  for 
a  long  time;  but  after  a  while  Prime  lost 
himself,  and  when  he  awoke  it  was  daylight 
and  Lucetta  was  cooking  breakfast. 

On  this  day  they  were  fairly  out  of  an 
occupation.  With  the  stone  weightings  re- 

162 


Of  the  Name  of  Bandish 

moved,  the  canoe  patches  seemed  to  be 
sticking  bravely,  but  they  still  required  to 
be  daubed  with  another  coating  of  the  pitch, 
which  must  dry  thoroughly  before  they  could 
venture  upon  a  relaunching.  The  small  job 
done,  they  took  turns  sleeping  through  the 
forenoon,  and  after  the  midday  meal  Prime 
went  fishing,  taking  care,  however,  not  to 
go  beyond  calling  distance  from  the  glade. 

When  night  came  they  carried  the  precious 
canoe  to  the  exact  centre  of  the  clear  space 
and  built  a  circle  of  small  fires  all  around  it, 
at  the  imminent  risk  of  burning  it  up  or  at 
least  of  melting  the  pitch  from  its  seams. 
The  afternoon  had  been  cloudy  and  there 
were  indications  of  a  storm.  Prime  made 
the  fastenings  of  the  shelter-tent  secure  and 
stowed  the  provisions  under  the  overturned 
birch-bark,  leaving  a  space  where  he  could 
crawl  under  himself  if  the  storm  should 
break.  For  a  long  time  after  supper  they 
sat  together  beside  the  cooking-fire.  The 
mosquitoes  were  worse  than  usual,  and  Prime 
had  provided  some  rotting  wood  for  a  smudge, 
in  the  reek  of  which  they  wept  in  sympathetic 
companionship. 

163 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"Speaking  of  smoked  meat,"  Prime  grum- 
bled, after  they  had  exhausted  all  other 
topics,  "that  jerked  stuff  under  the  canoe 
hasn't  any  the  best  of  us."  Then,  with  a 
teasing  switch  to  their  rapidly  disintegrating 
clothes:  "How  would  you  like  to  walk  into 
your  classroom  in  the  girls'  school  just  as 
you  are  ?" 

"Just  about  as  well  as  you'd  like  to  walk 
down  Fifth  Avenue  under  the  same  con- 
ditions," was  the  choking  reply.  "My!  but 
that  smoke  is  dreadful !" 

"It  is  like  the  saw-off  between  any  two 
evils:  when  you  are  enduring  the  one  you 
think  you'd  rather  endure  the  other.  Let 
us  hope  and  pray  that  this  is  the  last  night 
for  us  in  this  particular  sheol,  at  least.  I've 
heard  and  read  a  good  bit  about  the  insect 
pests  of  the  northern  woods,  and  I  have  al- 
ways taken  it  with  a  grain  of  salt.  That  is 
another  mistake  I  shall  never  make  again." 

"They  were  not  bad  on  the  St.  Lawrence 
nor  in  Quebec,"  observed  the  other  martyr. 

The  mention  of  Quebec  started  a  new 
subject  or,  rather,  revived  an  old  one,  and 
they  fell  to  talking  of  their  short  experience 

164 


Of  the  Name  of  Bandish 

in  the  historic  city.  One  thing  leading  to 
another,  Prime  went  more  specifically  into 
his  evening  excursion  with  the  athletic  young 
fellow  who  had  seemed  so  anxious  to  increase 
the  dividends  of  the  motion-picture  houses 
and  the  cafes. 

"He  was  a  handsome  fellow,  and  he  didn't 
begin  to  have  the  face  of  a  villain,"  he  com- 
mented. "A  good  talker  too.  He  had 
travelled — been  everywhere.  One  of  the  pic- 
tures we  saw  was  a  'Western/  and  that 
brought  on  more  talk.  I  remember  he  told 
me  a  lot  about  his  own  experience  in  the 
British  Columbia  mines.  It  was  great  stuff. 
He  had  been  manager  and  general  factotum 
for  some  rich  old  money-bags — if  he  wasn't 
lying  to  me  and  making  it  all  up  out  of  whole 
cloth." 

"He  didn't  do  anything  to  make  you  sus- 
pect that  he  might  have  designs  upon  you  ?" 

"Not  a  thing  in  the  world.  He  was  as 
frank  and  open-hearted  as  a  boy.  There 
wasn't  anything  peculiar  about  him  except 
his  habit  of  looking  at  his  watch  every  few 
minutes.  I  asked  him  once  if  I  was  keeping 
him  from  an  appointment,  and  he  laughed 

165 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

and  said  he  wished  that  I  were;  wished  that 
he  were  well  enough  acquainted  in  the  city 
to  be  able  to  make  appointments." 

"Did  he  tell  you  his  name?"  queried  the 
weeping  listener. 

"He  did,  and  ever  since  we  woke  up  and 
found  ourselves  back  yonder  on  the  lake 
shore  I  have  been  trying  to  recall  it.  It  is 
gone  completely.  ' Bender'  is  the  nearest 
I  can  come  to  it,  and  that  isn't  it." 

"Would  you  know  it  if  you  should  hear  it  ?" 

"  I  am  sure  I  should.  It  was  a  queer  name, 
and  I  remember  thinking  at  the  time  that  I 
would  jot  it  down  and  use  it  for  the  name  of 
a  character  in  a  story — simply  because  it 
was  so  delightfully  odd." 

"Tell  me,"  she  broke  in  quickly;  "was 
this  young  man  of  yours  fair,  with  blue  eyes, 
and  hair  that  reminded  you  a  little  of  a  hay- 
field  ?" 

"That  is  the  man!" 

"  How  would  *  Bandish '  do  for  the  name  ? " 
she  asked. 

"YouVe  got  it !  That's  what  it  was. 
How  in  the  name  of  all  that  is  wonderful 
did  you  know  ?" 

166 


Of  the  Name  of  Bandish 

"I  was  merely  putting  one  and  one  to- 
gether to  make  two,"  was  the  quiet  rejoinder. 
"The  young  woman  I  was  with  that  same 
night  was  Mrs.  Bandish.  She  was  the  one 
whose  careless  sleeve-pin  scratched  my  arm 
and  put  me  to  sleep." 

"Then  you  knew  them  both?"  Prime  de- 
manded. 

"Only  slightly.  They  claimed  to  be 
teachers  from  some  little  town  in  Indiana. 
I  don't  know  where  they  joined  our  party, 
but  I  think  it  was  before  we  took  the  St. 
Lawrence  River  boat.  Anyway,  it  was  some- 
where in  Canada.  They  were  easy  to  get 
acquainted  with.  At  first  I  didn't  like  the 
young  woman  any  too  well;  there  was  some- 
thing about  her  that  gave  me  the  idea  that 
she  was — well,  that  she  was  somehow  too 
sophisticated.  But  that  wore  off.  She  was 
quick-witted  and  jolly,  and  both  she  and 
her  husband  were  the  life  of  the  party  com- 
ing down  the  big  river." 

"Do  you  suppose  Grider  bribed  them  to 
join  the  party  and  thus  get  you  in  tow?" 
Prime  asked. 

"No,  I  don't  suppose  anything  of  the 
167 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

kind.  You  are  forgetting  that  Mr.  Grider 
didn't  even  know  of  my  existence  at  that 
time — if  he  does  now,"  she  added,  after  a 
moment's  hesitation. 

"Grider  knew,  and  he  knew  that  we  were 
cousins,"  Prime  insisted.  "That  is  a  guess, 
but  you  will  see  that  it  will  turn  out  to  be 
the  right  one.  But  even  that  doesn't  explain 
why  he  should  come  up  here  in  the  woods 
and  cut  a  hole  in  our  canoe,  confound  him!" 

"It  doesn't  explain  a  good  many  things 
which  are  much  more  mysterious  than  they 
were  before,"  said  Lucetta;  and  shortly 
after  that  she  smoked  her  tent  blue  with  a 
bit  of  smudge  wood  and  disappeared  for  the 
night,  leaving  Prime  to  pull  reflectively  at 
a  clumsy  pipe  which  he  had  contrived  to 
whittle  out  of  a  bit  of  birch  wood  during  the 
day  of  waiting,  to  smoke  and  to  hope  that 
the  threatening  rain-storm  would  materialize 
and  drown  a  few  millions  of  the  tormenting 
mosquitoes. 


1 68 


XV 

JEAN  BA'TISTE 

ON  a  morning  which  Prime,  consulting  his 
notched  stick,  named  as  the  twenty-fourth  of 
July,  they  gave  the  canoe  patches  another 
daubing  of  pitch  for  good  luck,  relaunched 
their  argosy,  loaded  the  dunnage,  and  began 
to  learn  the  art  of  paddling  anew — the  re- 
learning  being  made  strictly  necessary  by 
the  new  green-wood  paddles. 

From  a  boisterous  mill-race  in  its  upper 
reaches,  their  river  had  now  subsided  into  a 
broad  stream  with  a  current  so  leisurely  that 
they  had  to  paddle  continuously  to  make  any 
headway.  With  this  handicap  their  progress 
was  slow,  and  it  was  not  until  the  afternoon 
of  the  second  day  that  they  began  to  see 
signs  to  hint  that  they  were  approaching  the 
settlements. 

The  signs  were  neither  numerous  nor  in- 
dicative of  any  recent  habitancy:  a  few  old 
clearings  with  their  stumps  weathered  and 
rotting;  here  and  there  a  spot  luxuriantly 

169 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

green  to  mark  an  area  where  slashings  had 
been  burned;  in  one  place  a  decaying  run- 
way to  show  where  the  logs  had  been  skidded 
into  the  river;  all  these  proved  that  they 
were  not  pioneers;  but  withal  they  saw  no 
human  being  to  dispute  possession  with 
them. 

In  the  evening  of  this  second  day  they 
camped  on  the  right-hand  bank  a  short 
distance  below  one  of  the  old  clearings, 
kindling  their  night  fire  a  few  yards  from  the 
river  in  a  small  grove  of  second-growth 
pines.  The  place  was  not  entirely  to  their 
liking;  the  river-bank  was  high,  and  they 
could  not  draw  the  canoe  out  without  par- 
tially unloading  it.  While  Lucetta  was  busy- 
ing herself  with  the  supper,  Prime,  as  a  pre- 
cautionary measure,  made  a  porter  of  himself 
to  the  extent  of  carrying  a  good  part  of  the 
dunnage  up  to  the  fire,  and  after  thus  light- 
ening the  canoe  he  hauled  it  out  of  water  as 
far  as  the  steep  bank  would  permit. 

While  they  were  eating  supper  an  unex- 
pected guest  turned  up.  Lucetta  was  the 
first  to  hear  the  dip  of  a  paddle  in  the  stream, 
and  a  moment  later  they  both  heard  the 

170 


Jean  Ba'tiste 

grating  of  a  boat  bottom  on  the  sand.  Prime 
sprang  up,  rifle  in  hand,  and  went  to  meet 
the  newcomer,  prepared  to  do  battle  if  need- 
ful. When  he  returned  he  was  followed  by 
a  small  man,  dark,  bearded,  and  with  bead- 
like  black  eyes  roving  and  shifty.  He  was 
dressed  more  like  an  Indian  than  a  white  man; 
there  were  fringes  on  his  moccasins  and  also 
on  the  belted  coat,  which  was  much  the  worse 
for  wear  and  hard  usage. 

"Afoz,  Jean  Ba'tiste;  I  mek  you  de  good 
evenin',  m'sieu'  et  madame"  he  said,  intro- 
ducing himself  brusquely,  and  as  he  spoke 
the  roving  eyes  were  taking  in  every  detail 
of  the  bivouac  camp.  Then,  with  no  more 
ado,  he  squatted  beside  the  fire  and  became 
their  supper  guest,  saying  simply:  "You 
eat? — good;  moi,  I  eat,  too." 

Since  there  seemed  to  be  no  question  of 
ceremony,  Prime  made  the  guest  welcome, 
heaping  his  tin  plate  and  pouring  tea  for 
him  in  the  spare  cup.  The  small  man  ate 
as  if  he  were  half  starved,  and  was  saving 
of  speech  during  the  process,  though  the 
roving  eyes  seemed  to  be  doing  double  duty. 
The  meal  devoured,  he  produced  a  black 

171 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

clay  pipe  with  a  broken  stem  and  uttered  a 
single  word,  "Tabac'  ?"  and  when  the  want 
was  supplied  he  crumbled  himself  a  pipeful 
from  the  twist  which  Prime  handed  him. 

Prime  filled  his  own  home-made  pipe,  and 
at  its  lighting  the  guest  began  a  curt  in- 
quisition. 

"Were  you  come  from  ?" 

Prime  explained  without  going  into  any 
of  the  kidnapping  details. 

"You  campin'  out  for  fon,  mebbe,  yes?" 
was  the  next  query. 

"A  little  that  way,"  said  Prime. 

"You  shoot  wiz  ze  gon  ?  Were  all  dat 
game  w'at  you  get  ?" 

"It  isn't  the  game  season,"  Prime  par- 
ried. "We  haven't  tried  to  shoot  any- 
thing." 

"But  you  'ave  ze  gon.  Lemme  see  'um," 
holding  out  a  hand  for  the  rifle. 

Prime  passed  over  the  gun  nearest  at 
hand  and  drew  the  other  one  up  within 
reach.  The  inquisitive  supper  guest  looked 
the  weapon  over  carefully  and  seemed  to 
be  trying  to  read  something  in  the  scratches 
on  the  stock. 

"  V raiment!  she's  one  good  gon,"  he  com- 
172 


"  Vraiment  I  she's  one  good  gon,"  he  commented.  .  .  . 
"Were  you  get  'urn?" 


Jean  Ba'tiste 

mented,  passing  it  back.  "Were  you  get 
'urn?" 

Prime  did  not  answer  the  question.  He 
thought  it  was  high  time  to  ask  a  few  of  his 
own. 

"What  river  is  this  ?"  he  wanted  to  know. 

"You  make  canoe  on  him  and  you  not 
know  dat  ?  She  is  Mishamen;  comes  bimeby 
to  Riviere  du  Lievres." 

"How  far?" 

"One,  two,  t'ree  day;  mebbe  more." 

"You  mean  that  we  will  reach  a  town  in 
two  or  three  days  ?" 

"Mebbe  so,  if  you  don'  get  los'." 

Prime  exchanged  a  quick  glance  with  his 
fellow  castaway.  Lucetta  signalled  "Yes," 
and  he  acted  accordingly. 

"What  will  you  charge  to  show  us  the  way 
to  the  nearest  town?"  he  asked. 

The  small  man  did  not  seem  especially 
eager  for  money.  He  was  examining  the 
gun  again.  " '  Moi,  I  can't  go — too  bizzee. 
Were  you  got  dis  gon  ?" 

"It  came  with  our  outfit,"  said  Prime 
shortly.  "We  got  it  when  we  got  the 


canoe." 


:And  w'ere  you  got  dat  canoe  ?: 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

The  inquisition  was  growing  rather  em- 
barrassing, but  Prime  answered  as  best  he 
could. 

"We  got  the  outfit  up  at  the  big  lake 
where  we  started  from.  We  have  come  all 
the  way  down  the  river." 

With  this  the  restless-eyed  querist  ap- 
peared to  be  satisfied.  At  all  events  he  did 
not  press  the  questioning  any  further,  and 
was  content  to  take  another  pipe-filling  from 
Prime's  tobacco  twist  and  to  tell  a  little 
more  about  himself.  He  was  "one  ver* 
great  trapper,"  in  his  own  phrase,  and  was 
also  a  "timber  looker"  for  a  lumber  com- 
pany. Lucetta  had  withdrawn  to  the  privacy 
of  her  tent,  and  Prime  could  not  divest  him- 
self of  the  idea  that  the  small  man  whose 
tongue  had  been  so  suddenly  loosened  was 
merely  sparring  for  time,  time  in  which  to 
accomplish  some  end  of  his  own.  In  due 
course  the  battery  was  unmasked. 

"You  say  you  begin  voyageur  on  ze  big 
lake.  Were  you  leave  Jules  Beaujeau  an* 
Pierre  Cambon,  eh,  w'at  ?" 

"I  don't  know  them,"  said  Prime,  telling 
the  simple  truth. 


Jean  Ba'tiste 

"Dis  Pierre  Cambon's  gon,"  said  the  little 
man,  suddenly  tapping  the  weapon  he  had 
been  inspecting.  "She  'ave  hees  name  on 
ze  stock.  An'  ze  birch-bark  down  yonder; 
she's  belong'  to  Jules  Beaujeau.  You  buy 
'urn?" 

Prime  scarcely  knew  what  to  say;  whether 
to  tell  the  truth,  which  would  not  be  be- 
lieved, or  to  make  up  a  lie,  which  might  be 
believed.  As  a  compromise  he  chose  a  middle 
course,  which  is  always  the  most  dangerous. 

"I  don't  know  these  two  you  speak  of, 
by  name;  but  the  two  men  who  owned  the 
canoe  and  the  guns  are  both  dead." 

The  supper  guest  sprang  up  as  if  a  bomb 
had  been  exploded  under  him  and  quickly 
put  a  safe  distance  between  himself  and 
the  camp-fire. 

"You — you  kill  'urn?"  he  demanded. 

"No;  come  back  here  and  sit  down.  They 
had  a  fight  and  killed  each  other." 

The  man  returned  hesitantly  and  squatted 
beside  the  fire  to  press  another  live  coal  into 
the  bowl  of  his  pipe.  Prime  switched  the 
talk  abruptly. 

"You'd   better  change  your  mind   about 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

the  offer  I  made  you  and  pilot  us  to  the 
nearest  town.  We  will  pay  you  well  for 
it." 

"You  got  money?"  was  the  short  ques- 
tion. 

"Plenty  of  it." 

At  this  the  "ver*  great  trapper"  assumed 
to  take  the  proposal  under  consideration, 
smoking  other  pipes,  chaffering  and  bargain- 
ing and  prolonging  his  stay  deep  into  the 
night.  When  he  finally  took  his  leave,  say- 
ing that  he  must  go  on  to  his  camp,  which 
was  a  few  miles  up  one  of  the  smaller  tribu- 
taries of  the  main  stream,  it  was  with  a  half 
promise  to  come  back  in  the  morning  for  the 
piloting. 

Prime  took  counsel  of  prudence  and  did 
not  settle  himself  for  the  night  immediately 
after  the  sharp-eyed  one  had  gone.  Laying 
his  pipe  aside,  he  crept  cautiously  out  to 
the  river-bank  and  assured  himself  that  his 
late  visitor  was  doing  what  he  had  said 
he  would  do,  namely,  heading  off  up  the 
river  with  clean,  quick  strokes  of  the  paddle, 
which  soon  sent  his  light  craft  out  of  sight. 
Prime  climbed  down  the  bank,  satisfied  him- 

176 


Jean  Ba'tiste 

self  that  the  patched  canoe  and  its  partial 
lading  had  not  been  disturbed,  and  then 
went  back  to  the  fire  to  roll  himself  in  his 
blankets.  The  incident,  with  its  inquisitorial 
pryings,  had  been  rather  disturbing,  in  a 
way,  but  it  was  apparently  an  incident 
closed. 

Turning  in  so  late  after  a  laborious  day 
on  the  river,  Prime  overslept  the  next  morn- 
ing, and  when  he  awoke  he  found  Lucetta 
already  up  and  frying  the  bacon. 

"Your  man  didn't  stay  all  night  ?"  she 
questioned,  after  Prime  had  scolded  her  for 
not  making  him  get  up  and  do  his  part. 

"No;  he  sat  here  until  between  ten  and 
eleven  o'clock  and  gave  me  two  or  three 
bad  minutes.  He  recognized  our  canoe  and 
one  of  the  guns,  told  me  the  names  of  the 
dead  men,  and  wanted  to  know  what  had 
become  of  them." 

"You  didn't  tell  him?"  she  gasped. 

"In  the  cold  light  of  the  morning  after,  I 
am  afraid  I  told  him  too  much  or  too  little. 
I  told  him  the  men  who  owned  the  canoe 
and  its  outfit  were  dead;  that  they'd  had  a 
fight  and  killed  each  other.  Candidly,  I 

177 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

don't  think  he  believed  it.  It  scared  him 
until  I  thought  he  was  going  to  have  a  fit. 
I  had  to  jolly  him  up  a  bit  before  he  would 
come  back  to  the  fire  and  talk  some  more." 

"What  does  he  believe?"  she  inquired 
anxiously. 

"He  wouldn't  tell  me,  and  I  couldn't 
decide  by  merely  looking  at  him.  I  hope 
I've  hired  him  to  pilot  us  to  the  nearest 
town.  When  he  went  away  he  intimated 
that  he  might  be  back  this  morning." 

"Shall  we  wait  for  him?" 

"No;  if  he  isn't  here  by  the  time  we  are 
ready  to  start,  we'll  go  on  and  take  our 
chance  of  'gettin'  los','  as  he  put  it.  I  think 
that  was  a  bluff,  anyway." 

They  breakfasted  leisurely,  and  Prime  even 
took  time  to  smoke  a  pipe  before  begin- 
ning to  break  camp.  But  his  first  trip  to 
the  river-bank  with  a  load  of  the  dunnage 
brought  him  back  on  a  run. 

"Our  canoe's  gone !"  he  announced  breath- 
lessly. "That  little  wretch  came  back  and 
stole  it  while  we  were  asleep !" 

Lucetta  sat  down  and  propped  her  chin 
in  her  hands. 

178 


Jean  Ba'tiste 

"This  is  the  beginning  of  the  end,  Don- 
ald," she  said  quite  calmly  and  with  a  touch 
of  resignation  in  her  voice.  "Do  you  know 
why  he  took  the  canoe  ?" 

"Because  he's  an  infernal  thief!"  Prime 
raged  hotly. 

"No,"  she  contradicted.  "It  is  because 
he  thinks  we  have  murdered  the  two  owners 
of  the  canoe,  and  he  wanted  to  make  sure 
that  we  wouldn't  run  away  while  he  went 
after  help  to  arrest  us." 


179 


XVI 

MARCHONS! 

PRIME  leaned  against  a  tree  and  took  a 
full  minute  for  a  grasping  of  the  new  situa- 
tion. 

"I  more  than  half  believe  you  are  right," 
he  admitted  at  length.  Then,  with  a  crabbed 
laugh:  "If  there  is  any  bigger  dunce  on 
earth  than  I  am  I  should  like  to  meet  him — 
just  as  a  matter  of  curiosity.  I'll  never  brag 
on  my  imagination  after  this.  I  could  see 
plainly  enough  that  the  fellow  was  fairly 
eaten  up  with  suspicion,  and  it  would  have 
been  so  easy  to  have  invented  a  plausible 
lie  to  satisfy  him." 

"Don't  be  sorry  for  that,"  the  young 
woman  put  in  quickly.  "If  they  arrest  us 
we  shall  have  to  tell  the  truth." 

Prime  was  frowning  thoughtfully.  "That 
is  where  the  shoe  pinches.  Do  you  realize 
that  the  story  we  have  to  tell  is  one  that  no 
sane  magistrate  or  jury  could  ever  believe, 

1 80 


Marchons ! 

Lucetta?  These  two  men,  Beaujeau  and 
Cambon,  must  have  started  from  some  known 
somewhere,  alive  and  well.  They  disappear, 
and  after  a  while  we  turn  up  in  possession 
of  their  belongings  and  try  to  account  for 
ourselves  by  telling  a  fantastic  fairy-tale. 
It's  simply  hopeless !" 

"You  are  killing  the  only  suggestion  I 
had  in  mind,"  was  the  dispirited  rejoinder. 
"I  was  going  to  say  that  we  might  wait  here 
until  they  came  for  us,  but  that  won't  do 
at  all.  We  must  hurry  and  disappear  before 
they  come  back  and  find  us !" 

"I  think  it  will  be  best,"  Prime  decided 
promptly.  "If  we  had  a  reasonable  story 
to  tell  it  would  be  different.  But  we  haven't, 
and  the  chances  are  that  we  should  get  into 
all  sorts  of  trouble  trying  to  explain  for  other 
people  a  thing  that  we  can't  explain  for  our- 
selves. It  is  up  to  us  to  hit  the  trail.  Are 
you  fit  for  it?" 

"Why  shouldn't  I  be?"  she  asked,  but 
there  was  no  longer  the  old-time  buoyancy 
in  her  tone. 

"I  have  had  a  notion  the  last  day  or  two 
that  you  were  not  feeling  quite  up  to  the 

181 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

mark,"  Prime  explained  soberly.  "It  is 
something  about  your  eyes;  they  look  heavy, 
as  if  you  hadn't  had  sleep  enough." 

"I  can  do  my  part  of  anything  that  we 
have  to  do,"  she  returned,  rising;  and  to- 
gether they  made  a  judicious  division  of  the 
dunnage,  deciding  what  they  could  take  and 
what  they  must  leave  behind. 

The  uncertainties  made  the  decision  hard 
to  arrive  at.  If  the  tramp  should  last  no 
more  than  three  or  four  days  they  could 
carry  the  necessary  food  without  much  dif- 
ficulty. But  they  could  scarcely  afford  to 
give  up  the  blankets  and  the  shelter-tent, 
and  Prime  insisted  that  they  must  take  at 
least  one  of  the  guns  and  the  axe.  These 
extras,  with  the  provisions  and  the  cooking- 
utensils,  made  one  light  load  and  one  rather 
heavy  one,  and  under  this  considerable 
handicap  the  day's  march  was  begun. 

The  slow  progress  was  difficult  from  the 
very  outset.  Since  the  river  was  their  only 
guide,  they  did  not  dare  to  leave  it  to  seek 
an  easier  path.  By  noon  Prime  saw  that  his 
companion  was  keeping  up  by  sheer  force  of 
will,  and  he  tried  to  get  her  to  consent  to  a 

182 


Marchons ! 

halt  for  the  afternoon.  But  she  would  not 
give  up. 

"No,"  she  insisted.  "We  must  go  on.  I 
am  tired;  I'll  admit  it;  but  I  should  be 
something  worse  than  tired  if  we  should 
have  to  stop  and  be  overtaken." 

From  the  beginning  of  the  day's  march 
they  seemed  to  have  left  behind  all  of  the 
former  hopeful  signs,  and  were  once  more 
making  their  way  through  a  primeval  forest, 
untouched,  so  far  as  they  could  see,  by  the 
woodsman's  axe.  Their  night  camp  was 
made  among  the  solemn  spruces  by  the  side 
of  a  little  brook  winding  its  way  to  the  near- 
by river.  Prime  made  a  couch  of  the  spruce- 
tips,  the  folded  tent  cloth,  and  the  blankets, 
and  persuaded  Lucetta  to  lie  down  while  he 
prepared  the  supper. 

When  the  meal  was  ready  the  substitute 
cook  was  the  only  one  who  could  eat.  Lu- 
cetta said  she  didn't  care  for  anything  but 
a  cup  of  tea,  and  when  Prime  took  it  to  her 
he  saw  that  the  slate-gray  eyes  were  unnat- 
urally bright  and  her  face  was  flushed. 
Whereat  a  great  fear  seized  upon  him. 

"You  are  sick!"  he  exclaimed,  grappling 
183 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

helplessly  with  the  unnerving  fear.  "Why 
didn't  you  tell  me  before  ?  I  thought — I 
hoped  you  were  just  tired  out  with  the  long 
tramp." 

"I  shall  be  better  in  the  morning,"  she 
answered  bravely.  "It  has  been  coming  on 
for  a  day  or  two,  I  think.  Why  did  we  camp 
here  in  this  close  place,  where  it  is  so  hot  ?" 

Prime  gripped  his  fleeting  courage  and  held 
it  hard.  It  was  not  hot  under  the  spruces; 
on  the  contrary,  the  evening  was  almost 
chilly.  Bestirring  himself  quickly  to  do 
what  little  he  was  able  to  do,  he  moved  the 
sick  one  gently  and  set  up  the  tent  to  shelter 
her,  dipped  the  remaining  bit  of  the  soft 
deerskin  into  the  brook  and  made  a  cold 
compress  for  the  aching  head,  and  then  sat 
down  with  a  birch-bark  fan  to  keep  the 
mosquitoes  away. 

As  the  night  wore  on  he  realized  more 
and  more  his  utter  helplessness.  He  had 
had  no  experience  with  sickness  or  with  the 
care  of  the  sick,  and  if  the  remedies  had 
been  at  hand  he  would  not  have  known  how 
to  use  them.  Time  and  again,  after  Lucetta 
had  fallen  into  a  troubled  sleep,  he  made 

184 


Marchons ! 

his  way  to  the  river-bank  to  stare  anxiously 
in  the  darkness  up  and  down  the  stream  in 
the  faint  hope  that  help  might  appear.  But 
for  all  his  longings  the  silent  river  gave  back 
neither  sight  nor  sound. 

In  the  morning  Lucetta's  fever  had  abated, 
but  it  had  left  her  weak  and  exhausted; 
much  too  weak  to  continue  the  march, 
though  she  was  willing  and  anxious  to  make 
the  trial.  Prime  vetoed  that  at  once  and 
tried  his  best  to  concoct  something  out  of 
their  diminished  store  of  provisions  that 
would  prove  appetizing  to  the  invalid.  She 
ate  a  little  of  the  broth  prepared  from  the 
smoked  deer  meat  merely  to  please  him,  and 
drank  thirstily  of  the  tea;  but  still  Prime 
was  not  encouraged. 

During  the  afternoon  Lucetta's  tempera- 
ture rose  again,  and,  harassed  and  anxious  as 
he  was,  Prime  was  thankful  that  the  fever 
did  not  make  her  delirious.  That,  he  told 
himself,  would  be  the  final  straw.  So  far 
from  wandering,  she  was  able  to  talk  to  him; 
to  talk  and  to  thank  him  gratefully  for  his 
earnest  but  skilless  attempts  to  make  her 
more  comfortable. 

185 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"It  is  simply  maddening  to  think  that 
there  isn't  anything  really  helpful  that  I 
can  do,"  he  protested,  at  one  of  these  pathetic 
little  outbreaks  of  gratitude.  "What  do 
they  do  for  people  who  have  fevers?" 

"Quinine,"  she  said,  with  a  twitching  of 
the  lips  which  was  meant  to  be  a  smile. 
"Why  don't  you  give  me  a  good  big  dose  of 
quinine,  Donald  ?" 

"Yes,  why  don't  I  ?"  he  lamented.  "Why 
do  I  have  to  sit  here  like  a  bump  on  a  log 
and  do  nothing!" 

"You  mustn't  worry,"  she  interposed 
gently.  "You  are  not  responsible  for  me 
and  my  aches  and  pains.  You  must  try  to 
remember  that  only  a  little  more  than  three 
weeks  ago  we  were  total  strangers  to  each 
other." 

"Three  weeks  ago  and  now  are  two  vastly 
different  things,  Lucetta.  You  have  proved 
yourself  to  be  the  bravest,  pluckiest  little 
comrade  that  a  man  ever  had !  And  I — I, 
whose  life  you  have  saved,  can  do  nothing 
for  you  in  your  time  of  need.  It's  heart- 
breaking !" 

The  night,  which  came  on  all  too  slowly 
1 86 


Marchons ! 

for  the  man  who  could  do  nothing,  was  even 
less  hopeful  than  the  previous  one  had  been. 
Though  he  had  no  means  of  measuring  it, 
Prime  was  sure  that  the  fever  rose  higher. 
For  himself  he  caught  only  cat-naps  now  and 
then  during  the  long  hours,  and  between 
two  of  these  he  went  to  the  river-bank  and 
built  a  signal-fire  on  the  remote  chance  of 
summoning  help  in  that  way. 

Between  two  and  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning  the  fever  began  to  subside  again, 
and  the  poor  patient  awoke.  She  was  per- 
fectly reasonable  but  greatly  depressed,  not 
so  much  over  her  own  condition  as  on  Prime's 
account.  Again  she  sought  to  make  him 
take  the  purely  extraneous  view,  and  when 
that  failed  she  talked  quite  calmly  about 
the  possibilities. 

"I  have  had  so  little  sickness  that  I  hardly 
know  whether  this  is  really  serious  or  not," 
she  said.  "But  if  I  shouldn't — if  anything 
should  happen  to  me,  I  hope  you  won't — 
you  won't  have  to  bury  me  in  the  river." 

"For  Heaven's  sake,  don't  talk  that  way !" 
he  burst  out.  "You're  not  going  to  die! 
You  mustn't  die !" 

187 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"I  am  sure  I  don't  want  to,"  she  returned. 
"Especially  just  now,  when  I  was  beginning 
to  learn  how  to  live.  May  I  have  a  drink  of 
water?" 

He  went  to  the  brook  and  got  it  for  her, 
raging  inwardly  at  the  thought  that  he  could 
not  even  offer  her  a  drink  out  of  a  vessel 
that  wouldn't  taste  tinny.  When  her  thirst 
was  quenched  she  went  on  half  musingly. 

"I  am  glad  there  isn't  any  one  to  be  so 
very  sorry,  Donald.  I  know  it  must  be  fine 
to  have  a  family  and  to  be  surrounded  by 
all  kinds  of  love  and  affection;  but  those 
things  carry  terrible  penalties.  Did  you 
ever  think  of  that  ?" 

"I  hadn't,"  he  confessed.  "I've  been  a 
sort  of  lonesome  one,  myself." 

"The  penalties  work  both  ways,"  she  went 
on.  "It  breaks  your  heart  to  have  to  leave 
the  loved  ones,  and  it  breaks  theirs  to  have 
you  go.  I  suppose  the  girls  in  the  school 
will  be  sorry;  they  all  seem  to  like  me  pretty 
well,  even  if  I  am  a  'cross  old  maid,'  as  one 
of  them  once  called  me  to  my  face." 

"I  can't  imagine  you  cross;  and  as  to  your 
being  old,  why  you're  nothing  but  a  kid, 

1 88 


Marchons  1 

Lucetta — just  a  poor  little  sick  kiddy.  And, 
goodness  knows,  you've  had  enough  to  knock 
you  out  and  to  make  you  think  all  sorts  of 
grubby  thoughts.  You  mustn't;  you  are 
going  to  get  well  again,  and  we'll  march  along 
together  the  same  as  ever.  Or  perhaps  the 
sheriff  will  find  us,  after  all.  I've  kindled  a 
big  fire  down  on  the  river-bank  so  that  he 
won't  have  any  excuse  for  overlooking  us. 
Day  before  yesterday  I  would  have  tramped 
twenty  miles  to  dodge  him,  but  to-night  I'd 
welcome  him  with  open  arms." 

"We.  were  foolish  to  try  to  run  away," 
she  said.  "And  that  was  my  fault,  too. 
The — the  next  time  you  are  kidnapped,  you 
must  be  careful  not  to  let  yourself  be  tied 
to  a  petticoat,  Cousin  Donald.  They  are 
always  in  the  way." 

"If  I  hadn't  been  tied  to  a  petticoat  that 
could  swim,  I  shouldn't  be  here  to-night 
fanning  the  mosquitoes  away  from  you," 
he  retorted,  with  a  laugh  that  was  meant  to 
be  cheering.  And  then  he  reverted  to  his 
one  overwhelming  and  blankly  insoluble 
problem:  "If  I  only  knew  what  to  do  for 


you!" 


189 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"When  I  was  a  little  girl  we  lived  in  the 
country,  and  my  mother  doctored  the  entire 
neighborhood  with  roots  and  herbs.  It  is  a 
pity  I  haven't  inherited  a  little  of  her  skill, 
isn't  it?" 

"There  are  lashings  of  pitiful  things  in 
this  world,  Lucetta,  and  we  are  getting  ac- 
quainted with  a  few  of  them  right  now. 
But  I  mustn't  let  you  talk  too  much.  Try 
to  go  to  sleep,  if  you  can,  and  get  a  little 
rest  before  the  fever  comes  on  again." 

She  closed  her  eyes  obediently,  and  after 
a  time  he  knew  by  her  regular  breathing  that 
she  was  asleep.  For  a  patient  hour  he  kept 
the  birch-bark  fan  in  motion  and  with  the 
first  streakings  of  dawn  got  up  stiffly  to  make 
his  way  to  the  river-bank,  dragging  with  him 
a  half-rotted  log  to  turn  the  pillar-of-fire  sig- 
nal into  a  pillar  of  smoke. 


190 


XVII 

ROOTS   AND    HERBS 

THE  dawning  of  the  second  day  in  the 
camp  under  the  great  spruces  found  Prime 
still  struggling  desperately  with  the  problem 
of  what  to  do.  Lucetta's  condition  seemed 
to  be  rather  worse  than  better.  There  was 
the  usual  morning  abatement  of  the  fever, 
but  she  was  evidently  growing  weaker. 
Prime's  too  vivid  imagination  pictured  an 
impending  catastrophe,  and  the  canoe  thief, 
no  less  than  Watson  Grider,  came  in  for 
wordless  and  despairing  maledictions.  If  the 
canoe  had  not  been  stolen  they  might  by  now 
be  within  reach  of  help. 

It  was  when  matters  were  at  this  most 
distressing  pass  that  the  writing-man's  in- 
vention, pricked  alive  by  what  Lucetta  had 
said  concerning  her  mother's  skill  with  simples, 
opened  a  temerarious  door  of  hope.  Making 
his  charge  as  comfortable  as  he  could,  and 
leaving  a  cup  of  water  where  she  could  reach 
it,  he  told  her  he  was  going  for  a  walk. 

191 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

Taking  the  brook  for  a  pathfinder,  he 
traced  its  course  until  it  led  him  into  a  region 
of  opener  spaces  where  there  was  a  better 
chance  for  ground  growth.  In  the  first  weed 
patch  he  came  to  he  began  to  pluck  and 
taste.  Unhappily,  his  knowledge  of  botany 
was  perilously  near  a  minus  quantity  ;j  there 
were  few  of  the  weeds  that  he  knqw  even  by 
name.  At  the  imminent  risk  of  poisoning 
himself,  he  went  on,  chewing  a  leaf  here  and 
there,  not  knowing  in  the  least  what  he  was 
looking  for,  but  having  an  inchoate  idea  that 
a  febrifuge  ought  to  be  something  bitter. 

The  tasting  process  gave  him  a  variety  of 
new  experiences.  The  leaves  of  one  weed 
burned  his  mouth  like  fire,  and  he  had  to 
stop  and  plunge  his  face  into  the  brook  to 
extinguish  the  conflagration.  Those  of  an- 
other made  him  deathly  sick.  Finally  he 
came  to  a  tall  plant  with  bluish-white  flowers 
which  looked  familiar,  in  a  way,  though  he 
could  not  recall  its  name.  A  chewed  leaf 
convinced  him  at  once  that  he  need  seek  no 
farther.  There  was  the  bitterness  of  hope- 
less sorrow  in  its  horrible  acridity;  it  clung 
to  him  tenaciously  while  he  was  gathering 

192 


Roots  and  Herbs 

an  armful  of  the  plant,  and  went  with  him 
on  his  return  to  the  camp — this,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  he  stopped  frequently  to  wash 
his  mouth  with  brook  water. 

"What  have  you  there?"  was  Lucetta's 
query  when  he  came  in  with  his  burden. 

"I  don't  know,  but  I  am  hoping  you  can 
tell  me,"  he  said,  giving  her  a  spray  of  the 
weed  to  look  at.  "Have  you  ever  seen  it 
before?" 

"Hundreds  of  times,"  she  returned.  "It 
is  a  common  weed  in  Ohio.  But  I  haven't 
the  slightest  idea  what  it  is." 

Prime  groaned.  "More  of  the  town-bred 
education,"  he  deprecated.  "  But  never  mind ; 
they  can't  call  us  nature-fakirs,  whatever 
other  foolish  name  we  may  be  earning  for 
ourselves." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  it  ?"  she 
asked. 

"Wait  and  you'll  see." 

With  the  bread-mixing  tin  for  a  stew-pan 
Prime  made  a  rich  decoction  of  the  leaves. 
When  the  mess  began  to  simmer  and  steam 
the  poor  patient  raised  herself  on  one  elbow 
to  look  at  it. 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"You  are  not  going  to  make  me  drink  all 
that,  are  you,  Donald  ?"  she  protested 
weakly. 

"Oh,  no;  not  all  of  it.  Wait  until  it's 
properly  cooked  and  I'll  show  you  what  I 
am  going  to  do  with  it/' 

The  cooking  took  some  time,  but  the 
culinary  effort  offered  a  mild  diversion  and 
was  at  least  a  change  from  the  deadly  routine 
of  doing  nothing.  The  steam  rising  from 
the  stewing  leaves  gave  off  a  peculiarly  af- 
flicting odor,  and  Lucetta  sniffed  it  appre- 
hensively. 

"It  smells  very  horrible,"  she  ventured. 
"Is  it  going  to  taste  as  bad  as  it  smells?" 

"That,  my  dear  girl,  is  on  the  knees  of 
the  gods,"  he  returned  oracularly. 

"How  did  you  find  it?"  she  wanted  to 
know. 

"By  the  simple  process  of  cut  and  try. 
And  I  can  assure  you  that,  however  bad  it 
may  smell  or  taste,  it  hasn't  anything  on 
some  of  the  leaves  I've  been  chewing  this 
morning." 

When  the  dose  was  sufficiently  cooked 
Prime  fished  the  leaves  out  of  the  liquor 

194 


Roots  and  Herbs 

with  a  forked  twig,  and  carried  the  stew- 
pan  to  the  brook  to  take  the  scalding  edge 
off  of  the  ill-smelling  decoction. 

"Are  you  ready  to  be  poisoned  ?"  he 
asked  when  he  came  back. 

"  You're — you're  sure  it  isn't  poison,  aren't 
you  ?"  she  quavered. 

"No,  but  I  am  going  to  be,"  and  with 
that  he  shut  his  eyes,  held  his  breath,  and 
took  a  long  drink  from  the  stew-pan  of  fate, 
disregarding  easily,  in  the  frightful  bitter- 
ness of  the  draft,  Lucetta's  little  cry  of  dis- 
may. 

"Merely  trying  it  on  the  dog,"  he  gasped 
when  he  put  the  pan  down  and  turned  away 
so  that  she  should  not  see  the  face  contor- 
tions— grimaces  forthshowing  the  resentment 
of  an  outraged  palate.  Then  he  went  to  sit 
on  his  blanket-roll  to  await  results.  "If — 
if  it  doesn't  kill  me,  then  you  can  try  it;  but 
— but  we'll  wait  a  few  minutes  and  see  what 
it's  going  to  do  to  me." 

When  the  results  proved  to  be  merely 
embittering  and  not  immediately  deadly, 
he  became  a  nurse  again. 

"I  have  left  it  as  hot  as  you  can  drink  it," 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

he  said,  offering  the  basin.  "It  seems  as  if 
it  ought  to  do  more  good  that  way.  Take 
a  good  long  swig,  if  you  can  stand  it." 

Lucetta  put  her  lips  to  the  mixture  and 
made  a  face  of  disgust. 

' '  Ou-e-e-e ! — bone  set !  "  she  shuddered . 
"I'd  know  it  if  I  should  meet  it  in  another 
world — it  takes  me  right  back  to  my  child- 
hood and  mother's  roots  and  herbs !  I  can't, 
Donald;  I  simply  can't  drink  all  of  that !" 

"Drink  as  much  as  you  can.  It's  good  for 
little  sick  people,"  he  urged,  trying  to  twist 
the  wryness  of  his  own  aftermath  into  a 
smile.  "  If  the  horrible  taste  counts  for  any- 
thing, it  ought  to  make  you  well  in  five 
minutes." 

Lucetta  did  her  duty  bravely,  and  when 
the  worst  was  over  Prime  tucked  her  up  in 
the  blankets,  adding  his  own  for  good  mea- 
sure. Then  he  made  up  a  roasting  fire,  hav- 
ing some  vague  notion  brought  over  from  his 
boyhood  that  fever  patients  ought  to  sweat. 
Past  this,  he  made  a  sad  cake  of  pan-bread 
for  his  own  midday  meal,  and  when  it  was 
eaten  he  found  that  Lucetta  had  fallen  asleep, 
and  was  further  encouraged  when  he  saw  that 

196 


Roots  and  Herbs 

fine  little  beads  of  perspiration  had  broken 
out  on  her  forehead. 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  before  she 
awoke  and  called  him. 

"Are  you  feeling  any  better?"  he  asked. 

"Much  better;  only  I'm  so  warm  I  feel 
as  if  I  should  melt  and  run  away.  Can't 
you  take  at  least  one  of  the  blankets  off?" 

"Not  yet.  You  like  to  cook  things,  and 
I  am  giving  you  some  of  your  own  medicine. 
This  is  Domestic  Science  as  applied  to  the 
human  organization.  Just  imagine  you  are 
a  missionary  on  one  of  the  South  Sea  Islands, 
and  that  you  are  going  to  be  served  up  pres- 
ently a  la  Fiji.  Shall  I  try  to  fix  you  up 
something  to  eat  ? " 

"Not  yet.  But  I  feel  as  if  I  could  drink 
the  brook  dry." 

"No  cold  water,"  he  decided  authori- 
tatively. "The  doctor  forbids  it.  But  you 
may  have  another  drink  of  hot  boneset 
tea." 

"Oh,  please,  not  again!"  she  pleaded; 
and  at  that  he  made  her  a  cup  of  the  other 
kind  of  tea,  which  she  drank  gratefully. 

"Taste  good?"  he  inquired. 
197 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"It  tastes  like  the  boneset — everything  is 
going  to  taste  like  boneset  for  the  next  six 
weeks." 

"Don't  I  know?"  he  chuckled.  "Hasn't 
it  already  spoiled  my  dinner  for  me?  I 
could  taste  it  in  everything."  Then  he  told 
her  about  his  experiment  in  pan-bread,  add- 
ing: "I  have  saved  a  piece  of  it  so  that  if 
you  wish  to  commit  suicide  after  you  get 
well,  the  means  will  be  at  hand." 

"Do  you  think  I  am  going  to  get  well, 
Donald?" 

"Sure  you  are!  You'll  have  to  do  it  in 
self-defense.  Just  think  of  the  oceans  of 
bitterness  you'll  have  to  swallow  if  you  don't. 
What  is  puzzling  me  now  is  to  know  what 
I  am  going  to  feed  you.  Do  you  suppose  you 
could  tell  me  how  to  make  some  pap  or 
gruel,  or  something  of  that  sort  ?" 

She  smiled  at  this,  as  he  hoped  she  would, 
and  said  there  was  no  need  of  crossing  that 
bridge  until  they  should  come  to  it.  Shortly 
after  this  she  fell  asleep  again,  and  by  night- 
fall Prime  was  overjoyed  to  find  that  her 
breathing  was  more  natural,  and  that  the 
fever  was  not  rising.  With  the  coming  of 

198 


Roots  and  Herbs 

the  darkness  a  fine  breeze  blew  up  from  the 
river,  and  he  was  overjoyed  again  when  it 
proved  strong  enough  to  drive  the  torment- 
ing mosquitoes  back  into  the  forest. 

That  night  he  was  able  to  make  up  some 
of  the  lost  sleep  of  the  two  preceding  nights, 
and  when  daybreak  came  another  burden 
was  lifted.  Lucetta  had  slept  all  night,  and 
she  declared  she  was  feeling  much  better; 
that  the  fever  seemed  to  be  entirely  gone. 
This  brought  the  question  of  nourishment 
to  the  fore  again,  and  Prime  attacked  it 
bravely,  opening  their  last  tin  of  peas  and 
making  a  broth  of  the  liquor  thickened  with 
a  little  of  the  reground  flour.  Lucetta  ate 
it  to  oblige  him,  though  it  was  as  flat  and 
tasteless  as  any  unsalted  mixture  must  be. 

"Are  you  always  as  good  as  this  to  every 
strange  woman  you  meet,  Cousin  Donald?" 
she  said,  meaning  to  make  the  query  some 
expression  of  her  own  gratitude. 

"Always,"  he  returned  promptly.  "I 
can't  help  it,  you  know;  Fm  built  that 
way.  But  you  are  no  strange  woman,  Lu- 
cetta. If  I  can't  do  more  for  you,  I  couldn't 
very  well  do  less.  We  are  partners,  and 

199 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

thus  far  we  have  shared  things  as  they  have 
come  along — the  good  and  the  bad.  What  is 
troubling  me  most  now  is  the  same  thing 
that  was  troubling  me  last  night:  I  don't 
know  what  I  am  going  to  feed  you.  You 
need  a  meat  broth  of  some  kind." 

"Not  any  more  of  the  smoked  venison, 
please!"  she  begged. 

"No,  it  ought  to  be  fresh  meat  of  some 
sort.  By  and  by,  if  the  fever  doesn't  come 
back,  I'll  take  the  gun  and  see  if  I  can't  get 
a  rabbit.  I  saw  three  yesterday  morning 
while  I  was  out  chewing  leaves.  You  won't 
be  afraid  to  be  left  alone  for  a  little  while, 
will  you  ?" 

"After  what  we  have  been  through,  I 
think  I  shall  never  be  afraid  of  anything 
again,"  she  averred  soberly.  "And  to  think 
that  I  was  once  afraid  of  a  mouse ! " 

"That  is  nothing,"  he  laughed;  "you 
probably  will  be  afraid  of  a  mouse  again 
when  you  get  back  to  an  environment  in 
which  the  mouse  is  properly  an  object  of 
terror.  I  shan't  think  any  the  less  of  you 
if  that  does  happen." 

She  smiled  up  at  him. 
200 


Roots  and  Herbs 

"Men  always  talk  so  eloquently  about 
the  womanly  woman:  just  what  do  they 
mean  by  that,  Donald  ?  Is  it  the  mouse- 
coward  ?" 

"It  differs  pretty  widely  with  the  man,  I 
fancy,"  he  returned.  "I  know  my  own 
ideal." 

"She  is  the  imaginary  girl  whose  pic- 
ture you  are  going  to  show  me  when  we 
get  out?" 

He  laughed  happily.  "You  mustn't  make 
me  talk  about  that  girl  now,  Lucetta.  Some 
day  I'll  tell  you  all  about  her.  Perhaps  it 
is  only  fair  to  say  that  she  is  not  so  terribly 
imaginary  as  she  might  be." 

"Of  course  not — if  you  have  her  pic- 
ture," was  the  quiet  reply;  and  a  little  while 
after  that  she  told  him  she  was  sleepy  again, 
and  that  he  might  take  the  gun  and  go  after 
a  rabbit  if  that  was  what  he  wished  to  do. 

She  did  go  to  sleep,  but  Prime  did  not  go 
hunting  until  after  the  midday  meal;  and 
thus  it  happened  that  when  Lucetta  awoke, 
along  in  the  afternoon,  she  found  herself 
alone.  For  an  hour  or  two  she  was  content 
to  lie  quietly,  waiting  for  Prime  to  return, 

2OI 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

but  when  the  afternoon  drew  to  a  close  and 
he  still  failed  to  put  in  an  appearance  she 
got  up,  rather  totteringly,  and  replenished 
the  camp-fire. 

Another  hour  passed  and  she  began  to 
grow  anxious.  The  spruce  grove  was  plunged 
in  shadows,  but  the  sun  had  not  yet  set  for 
the  upper  regions  of  the  air.  By  the  time  it 
was  fully  dark  she  knew  that  Prime  was  lost, 
and  in  this  new  terror  she  was  able  to  forget, 
in  some  measure  at  least,  the  effects  of  her 
late  illness.  Bestirring  herself  once  more, 
she  put  more  wood  on  the  fire,  hoping  that 
it  might  blaze  high  enough  to  serve  as  a 
signal  for  the  wanderer. 

It  was  all  she  could  do,  and  having  done 
it  she  sat  down  to  wait,  her  anxiety  growing 
sharper  as  the  evening  wore  on  and  there 
was  neither  sight  nor  sound  to  foreshadow 
the  lost  one's  return. 


202 


XVIII 

HEIGHTS   AND   DEPTHS 

IF  she  had  not  known  it  before,  Lueetta 
was  to  learn  now  that  sickness  of  any  sort 
is  but  a  poor  preparation  for  a  battle  of 
anxiety  and  endurance.  On  the  one  other 
occasion  when  she  had  been  thrown  upon 
her  own  resources  Prime  had  been  at  least 
visibly  present,  and  his  helplessness  had 
given  her  strength  to  fight  off  the  terrors. 
But  now  she  was  alone  and  the  terrors 
pressed  thickly. 

What  if  something  had  happened  to  the 
rabbit-hunter  ?  She  knew  his  utter  lack  of 
gun  dexterity,  and  her  terrified  imagination 
conjured  up  harrowing  pictures  of  the  missing 
one  lying  wounded  and  helpless  in  some 
distant  forest  solitude,  a  victim  of  his  un- 
selfish effort  to  provide  not  for  his  own  needs 
but  for  hers.  The  thought  was  a  keen  tor- 
ture, but  she  could  not  banish  it,  and  as  the 
hours  lengthened  it  threatened  to  drive  her 
mad.  There  was  nothing  she  could  do  save 

203 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

to  keep  the  fire  burning  brightly,  and  this 
she  did,  breaking  the  monotony  of  the  un- 
nerving suspense  from  time  to  time  by  col- 
lecting dry  wood  to  heap  upon  the  blaze. 

It  was  nearly  midnight  before  the  agony 
came  to  a  sudden  end.  She  was  lying  on 
the  blanket  pallet,  with  her  face  hidden  in 
the  crook  of  an  elbow  when  she  looked  up 
and  saw  Prime  standing  beside  her.  It  was 
not  in  human  nature  to  undergo  the  revul- 
sion from  the  depths  of  despair  calmly. 

"Donald!"  she  shrieked  faintly,  and  for- 
getting her  weakness,  she  sprang  up  and 
flung  herself  into  his  arms,  sobbing  in  an 
ecstasy  of  relief. 

He  took  it  in  good  brotherly  fashion,  and 
if  the  fraternal  attitude  was  not  strictly 
sincere,  it  was  made  to  appear  so. 

"There,  there,  little  woman,"  he  com- 
forted, "you  mustn't  turn  loose  that  way— 
you'll  make  yourself  sick  again.  It's  all  over 
now,  and  I  got  your  rabbit.  See,  here  it 
is" — drawing  it  from  his  pocket  and  dangling 
it  before  her  as  if  it  were  a  new  toy  and  she 
a  child  to  be  hastily  diverted. 

The  diversion  was  not  needed;    she  was 
204 


Heights  and  Depths 

freeing  herself  from  the  clasp  of  the  remain- 
ing reassuring  arm,  and  her  cheeks  were 
aflame. 

"I  didn't  know  I  could  be  so  silly!  Please 
don't  hold  it  against  me,  Donald,"  she 
begged.  "If  you  only  knew  what  I  have 
been  through  since  it  grew  dark !  You'll 
forgive  me  and — and  not  remember  it  after 
we — after  we " 

His  weariness  fell  from  him  like  a  cast- 
off  garment.  "Not  if  you  don't  want  me  to, 
Lucetta.  But  it  was  rather — er — pleasant, 
you  know — to  find  that  some  one  really 
cared  enough  about  what  had  become  of  me 
to — to  sort  of  forget  herself  for  a  moment." 

The  firelight  was  strong,  and  if  he  saw  the 
adoring  look  that  flashed  into  the  gray  eyes 
he  was  magnanimous  enough,  or  modest 
enough,  to  pass  it  over  to  the  sudden  transi- 
tion from  despair  to  relief. 

"It  must  have  been  something  fierce  for 
you,"  he  went  on;  "but  I  did  the  best  I 
could  after  I  had  been  idiotic  enough  to  get 
lost.  Of  course,  since  I  had  the  gun  with 
me,  it  was  hours  before  I  got  sight  of  a  rabbit; 
and  even  then  I  had  to  shoot  at  half  a  dozen 

205 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

of  them  before  I  could  manage  to  hit  one. 
By  that  time  it  was  getting  on  toward  sun- 
set, and  I  had  lost  the  brook  which  I  had 
taken  for  a  guide." 

"I  knew  you  would,"  she  broke  in.  "But 
that  wasn't  the  worst  of  it.  I  kept  imagining 
that  you  had  shot  yourself  accidentally,  and 
every  time  I  closed  my  eyes  I  could  see  you 
lying  wounded  and  helpless!" 

"You  poor  little  worrier!"  he  pitied;  "I 
knew  you  would  be  scared  stiff  if  I  didn't 
get  back  by  dark,  and  in  my  hurry  I  bore 
too  far  to  the  left;  a  great  deal  too  far,  as 
it  turned  out,  for  when  I  reached  the  river  I 
recognized  the  place.  It  was  just  this  side 
of  the  grove  where  we  were  camping  when 
the  canoe  was  stolen." 

"Horrors!"  she  gasped  faintly.  "And  you 
have  walked  all  that  distance?" 

"No,"  he  grinned;  "I  ran  a  good  part  of 
it.  When  I  came  in  a  few  minutes  ago  I 
was  dead  from  the  waist  down;  but  I  am  all 
right  now.  You  sit  down  and  think  broth 
while  I  skin  this  rabbit.  It's  a  juicy  one — 
as  fat  as  butter." 

Fifteen  minutes  later  the  rabbit  was  stew- 
206 


Heights  and  Depths 

ing  in  the  larger  skillet,   and   Prime  found 
time  to  ask  Lucetta  how  she  was  feeling. 

"Just  plain  hungry,"  she  returned.  "The 
fever  hasn't  come  back  any  more,  and  if  I 
ever  have  a  medicine-chest  of  my  own  there 
will  be  boneset  in  it;  great,  big,  smelly  pack- 
ages of  it.  Aren't  you  going  to  let  me  make 
a  bit  of  bread  to  eat  with  that  delicious 
gravy  broth  ?" 

"If  it  won't  tire  you  too  much,"  he  con- 
sented, and  at  that  he  sat  back  and  watched 
her  while  she  mixed  the  bread,  a  housewifely 
little  figure  kneeling  before  the  fire  and  patting 
the  dough  into  a  cake  with  hands  that  not 
all  the  rough  work  of  the  adventure  weeks 
had  made  misshapen. 

Somewhat  beyond  this  they  made  their 
post-midnight  meal,  and  were  once  more 
light-hearted  and  care-free.  In  the  after- 
math of  it,  when  Prime  had  lighted  his  home- 
made pipe,  they  were  even  buoyant  enough 
to  plan  for  the  future. 

"We'll  go  on  again  to-morrow,  shan't 
we?"  the  young  woman  assumed.  "We 
can't  be  so  very  far  from  the  towns  now, 
with  the  river  grown  so  large." 

207 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"I  fancy  we  are  nearer  than  we  thought 
we  were,"  Prime  replied.  "Over  to  the  west, 
where  I  went  this  afternoon,  there  is  another 
and  still  larger  river.  On  its  banks  the 
timber  has  all  been  cut  off  and  there  is 
nothing  but  second  and  third  growth.  It 
is  a  safe  bet  that  the  two  rivers  come  to- 
gether a  little  below  here,  and  if  we  are  not 
stopped  by  our  inability  to  cross  the  bigger 

river " 

"We  are  not  going  to  be  stopped,"  she 
prophesied  hopefully.  "I  have  a  feeling 
that  our  troubles,  or  the  worst  of  them,  are 
all  over." 

Prime  smiled.  "The  joyous  reaction  is 
still  with  you,  but  that  is  all  right  and  just 
as  it  should  be.  We'll  keep  on  going  until 
we  come  to  a  town  or  a  railroad,  and 
then- 
She  was  sufficiently  light-hearted  to  laugh 
with  him  when  he  glanced  down  at  his  torn 
and  travel-worn  clothes. 

"And  then  we  shall  be  arrested  for 
tramps,"  she  finished  for  him.  "  There  is 
one  consolation — neither  of  us  will  look  any 
worse  than  the  other." 

208 


Heights  and  Depths 

"When  we  find  a  town  we  shall  find 
clothes,"  he  asserted.  "Luckily  we  have 
English  money  to  buy  with." 

"Would  you — would  you  spend  that 
money?"  she  asked,  half  fearfully. 

"Why  not  ?  Fd  hock  the  dead  men  them- 
selves if  we  had  them  and  there  wasn't 
any  other  way  to  raise  the  wind.  But  I 
have  some  good,  old-fashioned  American 
money,  too." 

"I  shall  have  to  borrow  of  you  when  we 
get  to  where  we  can  buy  things,"  she  said, 
with  a  sudden  access  of  shyness  that  was 
new  to  him.  "I  had  a  purse  with  a  little 
money  in  it  that  night  at  Quebec,  but  it 
disappeared." 

"What  is  mine  is  yours,  Lucetta;  surely 
you  don't  have  to  be  told  that,  at  this  stage 
of  the  game." 

"Thank  you,"  she  said  softly.  "That 
goes  with  everything  else  you  have  done 
for  me."  Then,  after  a  pause:  "Will  you 
tell  the  other  girl  about  this — about  this 
adventure  of  ours,  Donald  ?" 

"Don't  you  think  I  ought  to  tell  her? 
Isn't  it  her  right  to  know?" 

209 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

She  took  time  to  consider. 

"I'm  not  sure;  women  are  singular  about 
some  things;  they  don't  always  understand. 
Perhaps  they  don't  care  to  understand — too 
much.  Then  there  is  always  the  difficulty 
of  explaining  things  just  as  they  were.  I 
could  tell  better  if  I  knew  the  girl.  Is  she 
young  ? " 

"Why,  y-yes — some  years  younger  than 
I  am.  But  she  is  all  kinds  of  sensible." 

"Is  she  in  New  York?" 

"No,"  he  answered  soberly.  "She  is  not 
in  New  York." 

She  took  it  as  a  hint  that  she  was  not  to 
ask  any  more  questions  about  the  girl  and 
changed  the  subject  abruptly. 

"Shall  you  go  and  look  for  Mr.  Grider 
after  we  find  a  railroad  ?" 

"Not  immediately.  I  shall  first  see  you 
safe  at  home  in  your  girls'-school  town  in 
Ohio,"  he  assured  her  firmly. 

"Oh,  that  won't  be  necessary,"  she  pro- 
tested. "I  have  travelled  alone  many  times. 
And  I  have  my  return  ticket;  or  I  shall  have 
it  when  I  get  back  to  Quebec." 

"Nevertheless,    I    am    going    home    with 

2IO 


Heights  and  Depths 

you,"  Prime  insisted  stubbornly.  "It  is  up 
to  me  to  see  you  out  of  this,  and  I  shall  make 
a  job  of  it  while  I  am  about  it.  When  it  is 
done  I  shall  come  back  to  Canada  to  find 
out  who  shanghaied  us  and  what  for.  And 
when  I  find  the  people  who  did  it  they  are 
going  to  pay  for  it." 

"Even  if  they  include  Mr.  Grider?" 

"  Yes,  by  Jove !  Even  if  the  man  higher 
up  happens  to  be  Watson  Grider.  I  don't 
mind  the  kidnapping  so  much  for  myself, 
but  the  man  doesn't  live,  Lucetta,  who  can 
make  you  go  through  what  you  have  gone 
through  in  the  past  month  and  get  away 
with  it." 

"I  don't  ask  you  to  fight  for  me,  Donald," 
she  interposed.  "And,  besides,  it  hasn't  been 
all  bad — or  has  it?" 

"We  have  agreed  every  little  while,  be- 
tween jolts,  that  it  hasn't.  I'll  go  further 
now,  and  say  that  it  is  the  finest,  truest, 
happiest  thing  that  has  ever  happened  to 
me — hardships  and  all." 

"You  mean  because  it  has  given  you  new 
working  material  ? " 

"No;  I  wasn't  thinking  so  much  of  that, 
211 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

though  the  new  material,  and  more  espe- 
cially the  new  angle,  are  worth  something, 
of  course.  But  there  are  bigger  consequences 
than  these — for  me — Lucetta."  Then  he 
broke  off  and  plunged  headlong  into  some- 
thing else.  "How  much  of  an  income  should 
a  man  have  before  he  can  ask  a  girl  to  marry 
him  ?  Does  the  Domestic  Science  course 
include  any  such  practical  data  as  that  ?" 

"Is  that  all  you  are  waiting  for?"  she 
inquired,  ignoring  his  question.  "Have  you 
asked  the  girl  ?" 

"No;  I  haven't  asked  her  yet.  And  the 
money  is  the  main  thing  that  I  shall  be  wait- 
ing for  from  this  time  on." 

"I  should  say  it  would  depend  entirely 
upon  the  girl — upon  what  she  had  been 
used  to." 

"I  think — she  hasn't — been  used  to  having 
things  made  so  very  soft  for  her,"  he  an- 
swered rather  uncertainly.  "But  she  has  at 
least  one  ambition  that  is  going  to  ask  for 
a  good  chunk  of  money  at  first,  until  she— 
until  she  gets  ready  to — to  settle  down." 

"And  that  is ?" 

The  suggestive  query  was  never  answered. 

212 


Heights  and  Depths 

As  Prime  laid  his  pipe  aside  and  was  about 
to  speak,  the  dark  backgrounding  of  shadows 
beyond  the  circle  of  firelight  filled  suddenly 
with  a  rush  of  men.  Prime  saw  the  glint  of 
the  firelight  upon  a  pair  of  brown  gun-barrels, 
and  when  he  mechanically  reached  for  his 
own  weapon  a  harsh  voice  with  a  broad 
Scottish  burr  in  it  broke  raggedly  into  the 
stillness. 

"None  o'  that,  now!  Ye'll  be  puttin'  yer 
hands  up  ower  yer  heids — the  baith  o'  ye — 
or  it'll  be  the  waur  f'r  ye  !  I'd  have  ye  know 
I'm  an  under-sheriff  o'  this  deestrict,  and 
ye'll  be  reseestin*  the  officers  o'  the  law  at 
yer  eril!" 


213 


XIX 

IN    DURANCE    VILE 

PRIME  stood  up,  spreading  his  empty  hands 
in  reasonable  token  of  submission. 

"If  you  are  an  officer  of  the  law  we  have 
no  notion  of  resisting  you,"  he  said  placably. 
"What  is  the  charge  against  us  ?" 

"Ye'll  be  knowin'  that  weel  enough,  I'm 
thinkin'.  Whaur's  Indian  Jules  and  the  Cam- 
bon  man  ?  Maybe  ye  can  tell  me  that ! 
Aiblins  ye'd  better  not,  though.  I'll  gie  ye 
fair  warnin'  that  whatever  ye  say'll  be  used 
against  ye." 

There  seemed  to  be  nothing  for  it  but  an 
unconditional  surrender.  Prime  looked  the 
posse  over  appraisively  as  the  men  composing 
it  moved  forward  into  the  circle  of  firelight. 
The  under-sherifT  was  what  his  speech  de- 
clared him  to  be — a  Scotchman;  stubby, 
square-built,  clean-shaven,  with  a  graying 
fringe  of  hair  over  his  ears,  a  hard-lined 
mouth,  shrewd  eyes  under  penthouse  brows, 

214 


In  Durance  Vile 

and  a  portentous  official  frown.  His  posse 
men  were  apparently  either  "river  hogs"  or 
saw-mill  hands — rough-looking  young  fellows 
giving  the  impression  that  they  would  obey 
orders  with  small  regard  for  consequences. 
Prime  saw  nothing  hopeful  in  the  Scotch- 
man's face,  but  it  occurred  to  him  that  a  too 
easy  yielding  might  be  construed  as  an  ad- 
mission of  guilt. 

"I  take  it  that  a  false  arrest  and  imprison- 
ment is  actionable  in  Canada,  as  well  as  in 
the  United  States,"  he  threw  out  coolly, 
helping  Lucetta  to  her  feet.  "We'll  be  glad 
to  have  you  take  us  with  you — but  not  as 
prisoners."  And  thereupon  he  briefed  for 
the  square-built  one  the  story  of  the  kid- 
napping and  its  results. 

"And  ye* re  expectin'  me  to  believe  any 
such  fule's  rubbish  as  that  ?"  snapped  the 
Scotchman  wrathfully  when  the  tale  was 
told. 

'You  can  believe  it  or  not,  as  you  choose; 
it  is  the  plain  truth.  We'll  go  along  with 
you  cheerfully,  and  be  grateful  enough  to 
you  or  to  anybody  who  will  show  us  the  way 
out  of  this  wilderness.  But,  as  to  the  crime 

215 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

you  are  charging  us  with,  there  isn't  a  particle 
of  evidence,  and  you  know  it." 

"There's  evidence  to  hang  the  baith  of  ye ! 
YeVe  admitted  that  the  half-breeds  are  baith 
deid;  and  John  Baptist  will  sweer  that  ye 
had  their  canoe  and  Cambon's  gun.  For  the 
matter  o'  that,  ye're  not  denyin'  it,  yerself." 

"We  are  merely  wasting  time,"  put  in 
Prime  quietly.  "You  evidently  have  no 
wish  to  be  convinced;  and  if  you  are  willing 
to  take  the  chance  of  making  a  false  arrest 
you  may  have  your  own  way.  Let  me  say 
first,  though,  that  this  lady  is  just  recovering 
from  a  severe  attack  of  fever,  and  you  will 
be  held  strictly  accountable  if  you  make  her 
endure  any  unreasonable  hardships." 

"Tis  not  for  you  to  make  terms,"  was  the 
irascible  rejoinder,  and  then  to  his  men: 
"Tie  their  hands,  and  we'll  be  goin'." 

"One  moment,"  Prime  interposed;  and 
stooping  swiftly  he  caught  up  the  rifle.  ''  You 
may  do  anything  you  please  to  me,  but  the 
first  man  who  lays  a  hand  on  the  lady  is 
going  to  get  himself  killed." 

The  under-sheriff  screwed  out  a  bleak 
smile  at  the  naive  simplicity  of  the  threat. 

216 


In  Durance  Vile 

"And  if  we  say  'Yes/  and  truss  you  up 
first,"  he  suggested,  "what'll  ye  be  doin' 
then  ?" 

"I  shall  take  your  word  for  it  as  from  one 
gentleman  to  another,"  was  Prime's  quick 
concession,  and  with  that  he  dropped  the 
gun  and  held  out  his  hands. 

They  bound  him  securely  with  buckskin 
thongs,  and  at  a  word  from  the  Scotchman 
the  camp  dunnage  was  gathered  up,  the  fire 
trodden  out,  and  a  shift  was  made  to  the 
river-bank.  A  three-quarter  moon,  riding 
high,  showed  the  two  captives  a  large  birch- 
bark  drawn  out  upon  the  sands.  The  em- 
barkation was  quickly  accomplished,  the 
under-sheriff  planting  himself  amidships  with 
his  two  prisoners,  and  the  four  posse-men 
taking  the  paddles  as  if  they  had  been  bred 
to  it. 

After  an  hour  or  more  of  swift  down- 
stream gliding  the  current  quickened  and  a 
sound  like  the  wind  sweeping  through  the 
tree-tops  warned  the  voyagers  that  they 
were  approaching  a  rapid.  At  this  the  canoe 
was  sent  ashore  and  the  Scotchman  changed 
places  with  his  bow-man,  letting  the  change 

217 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

stand  even  after  the  slight  hazard  of  quick 
water  was  passed.  Prime  soon  saw  that  his 
new  guard  was  nodding,  and  bent  to  whisper 
to  his  fellow  captive: 

"This  is  mighty  hard  for  you — after  yes- 
terday and  last  night,"  he  protested.  "Can't 
you  shift  a  little  and  lean  against  me?" 

"I  am  doing  quite  well,"  was  the  low- 
toned  answer.  And  then:  "What  is  going 
to  come  of  all  this,  Donald  ? " 

"We  shall  get  out  of  the  woods  for  one 
thing.  And  for  another  we  are  going  to 
hope  that  a  real  court  will  not  be  so  ob- 
stinately suspicious  as  this  Scotchman.  But, 
whatever  lies  ahead,  we  must  just  stand  by 
and  face  it  out — together.  They  can't  punish 
us  for  a  crime  that  we  didn't  commit." 

There  was  silence  for  another  half-hour, 
and  then  Lucetta  whispered  again. 

"Which  pocket  is  your  penknife  in?" 
she  asked. 

"The  right-hand  pocket  of  my  waist- 
coat. What  are  you  going  to  do  ?" 

"I  am  going  to  cut  the  thongs.  It  is  bar- 
barously cruel  for  them  to  leave  you  tied 
this  way !" 

218 


In  Durance  Vile 

"No,"  he  forbade.  "That  would  only 
make  matters  worse.  The  buckskin  is  not 
hurting  me  much.  Lean  your  head  against 
my  shoulder  and  see  if  you  can't  get  a  little 
sleep." 

At  the  morning  breakfast  halt  Prime  tried 
to  extract  a  bit  of  geographical  information 
from  the  Scotchman.  It  was  given  grudg- 
ingly. During  the  night  they  had  passed 
from  their  own  river  to  the  larger  Riviere 
du  Lievres  and  they  were  still  twenty-four 
hours  or  more  from  their  destination — a 
place  with  a  long  French  name  that  Prime 
did  not  catch  and  which  the  Scotchman 
would  not  repeat.  For  the  first  time  in  their 
wanderings  the  two  castaways  ate  a  meal 
that  they  had  not  prepared  for  themselves; 
and  Prime,  observing  anxiously,  was  glad 
to  note  that  Lucetta's  wilderness  appetite 
seemed  to  be  returning. 

Throughout  the  day,  during  which  the 
crew  took  turns  paddling  and  sleeping,  the 
big  birch-bark  held  to  its  down-stream  course. 
But  now  the  scenery  was  changing  with  each 
fresh  looping  of  the  crooked  river,  the  River 
of  the  Hares.  Recent  timber-cuttings  ap- 

219 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

peared;  the  river  broadened  into  lake-like 
reaches;  here  and  there  upon  the  banks  there 
were  lumber  camps;  in  the  afternoon  a  small 
town  was  passed,  and  later  the  site  of  an- 
other that  had  been  destroyed  by  a  land- 
slide. 

With  an  eye  single  to  his  purpose,  the 
Scotchman  made  no  noon  stop,  and  the 
supper  fire  was  built  on  the  right-hand  bank 
of  the  broadened  stream  at  a  spot  where 
there  were  no  signs  of  human  habitation. 
As  at  the  breakfast,  Prime's  bonds  were 
taken  off  to  permit  him  to  feed  himself,  and 
when  the  voyage  was  resumed  they  were 
not  put  on  again. 

"The  wumman  tells  me  ye  can't  swim, 
and  I'm  takin'  her  word  for  it,"  was  the 
gruff  explanation.  "If  ye  go  overboard  in 
the  night,  I'll  juist  lat  ye  droon." 

With  his  hands  free,  Prime  asked  if  he 
might  smoke.  The  permission  was  given, 
and,  since  they  had  confiscated  Prime's  store 
of  tobacco  with  the  remainder  of  the  dun- 
nage, the  Scotchman  opened  his  heart  and 
his  tobacco-pouch  in  the  prisoner's  behalf, 
filling  his  own  pipe  at  the  same  time.  When 

220 


In  Durance  Vile 

the  dottles  were  glowing,  the  under-sheriff 
thawed  another  degree  or  so. 

"D'ye  mean  to  tell  me  that  ye're  goin' 
to  hold  to  that  rideeculous  story  of  yours  in 
the  coort?"  he  questioned.  "It  may  do  for 
auld  Sandy  Macdougal,  the  under-sheriff;  but 
ye'll  no  be  expectin'  a  jury  to  listen  till  it." 

Prime  laughed  soberly.  "I  wish,  for  your 
sake  and  our  own,  Mr.  Macdougal,  that  we 
had  a  more  believable  story  to  tell.  But 
facts  are  hard  matters  to  evade.  Things 
have  happened  to  us  precisely  as  I  have 
tried  to  tell  you.  We  were  drugged  in  Quebec 
and  abducted — carried  off  in  an  air-machine, 
as  well  as  we  can  reason  it  out — and  that  is 
all  there  is  to  it.  We  don't  know  any  more 
than  you  do  what  we  were  kidnapped  for — 
or  by  whom." 

"Weel,  ye're  a  main  lang  ways  from 
Quebec  the  noo — some  twa  hunnerd  miles 
or  mair.  And  ye're  not  dressed  for  the 
timmer." 

"Hardly,"  said  Prime. 

Macdougal  jerked  a  thumb  over  his 
shoulder  toward  Lucetta.  "Is  the  wumman 
yer  wife  ?" 

221 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"No;  we  are  distant  cousins,  though  we 
had  never  met  before  the  morning  when  we 
found  ourselves  on  the  shore  of  the  big  lake." 

"Ye  mean  that  ye  were  strangers  to  each 
ither?" 

"Just  that.  Up  to  that  moment  neither 
had  known  of  the  existence  of  the  other." 

The  Scotchman  stared  hard  at  Prime  from 
beneath  his  shaggy  brows. 

:t  Young  man,  ye'll  juist  be  tellin*  me 
what's  yer  business,  when  ye' re  not  trollopin' 
round  in  the  timmer  with  a  >oung  wumman 
that's  yer  cousin,  and  that  ye  never  saw  or 
heard  of  before." 

"I  am  a  fiction-writer,"  Prime  admitted, 
not  without  some  little  anxiety  as  to  the 
effect  the  statement  might  have  upon  the 
hard-headed  under-sheriff. 

"Ou,  ay !  That's  it,  is  it  ?  A  story-writer  ? 
And,  besides  that,  ye're  the  biggest  fule 
leevin5  to  tell  it  to  me.  Ye'll  no  be  expectin' 
me  to  believe  anything  ye're  sayin',  after 
that !  A  novel-writer — losh  ! " 

"One  of  the  greatest  Scotchmen  the  world 
ever  saw  was  a  novel-writer,"  Prime  ventured 
to  suggest. 

222 


In  Durance  Vile 

"And  it's  varra  little  to  his  credit,  let  me 
tell  ye  that,  young  man !  'Tis  mair  becomin' 
to  Sir  Walter  that  he  was  sheriff  depute  o' 
Selkirkshire  and  clerk  o*  session  for  abune 
twenty-five  year  on  end.  That's  a  canty  story 
for  ye!" 

Prime  saw  that  he  was  making  no  head- 
way with  the  Macdougal,  and  after  the 
pipes  were  out  he  tried  to  compose  himself 
to  sleep.  Some  time  later  on,  Macdougal 
changed  places  with  one  of  the  paddlers, 
and,  seizing  her  opportunity,  Lucetta  crept 
back  to  take  her  place  beside  Prime.  They 
talked  in  whispers  for  a  while,  each  trying 
to  cheer  the  other.  The  morning  of  new 
and  more  threatening  involvements  was  only 
a  short  night  distant,  and  in  the  light  of 
the  month  of  hardship  and  mystery  they 
could  only  fear  the  worst  and  hope  for  the 
best. 

"You  must  try  to  get  what  sleep  you 
can,"  Prime  urged  at  the  last,  arranging  the 
nearest  blanket-roll  for  her  back-support. 
"We  shall  be  up  against  it  again  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  we  both  ought  to  have  clear  heads 
and  a  good,  cold  nerve.  Snuggle  down  and 

223 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

shut  your  eyes.  I  am  going  to  do  the  same 
after  I've  smoked  another  pipe." 

He  kept  his  word,  dropping  off  shortly 
after  the  big  canoe  had  entered  a  long 
straight  reach  with  twinkling  lights  on  either 
shore  to  prove  that  the  moving  world  was 
once  more  coming  within  shouting  distance. 
How  long  he  slept  he  did  not  know,  but  when 
he  awoke  the  canoe  was  stopped  in  mid- 
stream, and  was  lying  stem  to  stern  beside 
a  larger  craft,  in  the  hold  of  which  throbbing 
machinery  seemed  to  be  running  idle. 

Vaguely  he  gathered  the  impression  that 
the  canoe  had  been  held  up  by  the  motor- 
craft;  then  he  realized  that  a  fierce  alterca- 
tion was  going  on  between  a  big  man  who 
was  leaning  over  the  side  to  grip  the  gun- 
wale of  the  birch-bark  and  Under-sheriff 
Macdougal. 

"I'll  fight  it  out  with  you  in  any  court 
you  like,  you  stubborn  blockhead !"  Prime 
heard  the  big  man  bellow  at  Macdougal, 
and  then  the  canoe  was  passed  swiftly  aft, 
somebody  reached  over  the  side  and  lifted 
him  bodily  into  the  cockpit  of  the  motor- 
boat,  and  a  moment  later  he  found  Lucetta 

224 


In  Durance  Vile 

beside  him,  staring  wildly  and  clinging  to 
him  as  if  he  were  her  only  hope. 

"Wha-what  are  they  doing  to  us  now?" 
she  quavered,  and  as  she  spoke  the  grum- 
bling machinery  in  the  depths  below  roared 
a  louder  note,  and  the  big  motor-craft  cut  a 
careening  half-circle  in  midstream,  leaving 
the  birch-bark  to  dance  and  wabble  in  the 
converging  area  of  the  furrowing  bow  wave. 
By  this  time  Prime  had  shaken  himself  fully 
awake.  The  two  deck-hands  who  had  pulled 
him  and  Lucetta  aboard  had  disappeared, 
and  the  big  man  who  had  been  bullying  Mac- 
dougal  was  at  the  wheel.  There  was  a  single 
electric  bulb  in  the  centre  of  the  cockpit 
awning,  and  by  its  light  Prime  had  his  first 
good  look  at  the  big  steersman. 

"Grider!"  he  exploded,  taking  a  step 
toward  the  man  at  the  wheel;  and  at  that 
Miss  Lucetta  Millington  drew  herself  up 
icily  and  turned  her  back. 


225 


XX 

WATSON    GRIDER 

PRIME  had  often  made  his  fictional  heroes 
"see  red"  in  exceptionally  vigorous  crises, 
and  he  was  now  able  to  verify  the  colorful 
figure  of  speech  in  his  own  proper  person. 
Like  a  submerging  wave  the  recollection  of 
all  that  the  heartless  joke  might  have  meant 
to  a  pair  of  helpless  victims — of  all  that  it 
had  actually  entailed  in  hardships  and  peril 
and  sickness — rushed  over  him  as  he  faced 
the  handsome  young  giant  at  the  wheel  of 
the  motor-cruiser. 

"So  it  was  you,  after  all!"  he  gritted. 
Then:  "There  are  some  few  things  that 
won't  keep,  Grider.  Put  this  boat  ashore 
where  we  can  have  a  little  more  room.  The 
account  between  us  is  too  long  to  wait  for 
daylight!" 

The  barbarian's  answer  to  this  was  a  shout 
of  derisive  laughter,  and  he  made  a  show  of 
putting  the  small  steering-wheel  between 
himself  and  his  belligerent  passenger. 

226 


Watson  Grider 

"Give  me  time,  Don — just  a  little  time  to 
take  it  all  in !"  he  gurgled.  "Oh,  my  sainted 
grandmother!  what  a  perfectly  ripping  fling 
you  must  have  had,  to  make  you  turn  loose 
all  holds  like  this !  And  the  lady — won't 
you — won't  you  introduce  me  ?" 

Lucetta  faced  about,  and,  if  a  look  could 
have  crippled,  the  motor-cruiser  would  ha/e 
lost  its  steersman. 

"Cousin  Donald  has  tried  to  tell  me  about 
you,  but  the  reality  is  worse  than  he  or  any- 
body could  put  into  words !"  she  broke  out 
in  indignant  scorn.  "Of  all  the  inhuman, 
dastardly  things  that  have  ever  been  done 
in  the  name  of  a  practical  joke,  yours  is  cer- 
tainly the  climax,  Mr.  Grider!" 

The  young  man  at  the  wheel  pursed  his 
lips  as  if  he  were  going  to  whistle;  then  he 
appeared  to  comprehend  suddenly  and  went 
off  in  another  gust  of  Hudibrastic  mirth. 

"I've  been  figuring  it  all  out  as  I  came 
along  up  river,"  he  choked;  "how  you  had 
tried  to  account  for  yourselves  to  each  other 
— how  you  had  been  wrestling  with  the  lack 
of  all  the  little  civilized  knickknacks  and 
notions — how  you'd  look  when  you  came 

227 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

out.  Excuse  me,  but  your — your  clothes, 
you  know;  you're  a  pair  to  make  a  wooden 
idol  hold  his  sides  and  chortle  himself  to 
death!" 

This  seemed  to  be  adding  insult  to  injury, 
and  by  this  time  Prime  was  speechless, 
Berserk-mad,  as  he  himself  would  have 
written  it.  Nothing  but  Lucetta's  restrain- 
ing hand  upon  his  arm  kept  him  from  hurling 
himself,  reckless  of  consequences,  upon  the 
heartless  jester.  When  he  could  control 
his  symptoms  sufficiently  to  find  a  few  co- 
herent words,  he  contrived  to  ease  the  soul- 
nausea — in  some  small  measure. 

'There  is  another  day  coming,  Grider; 
don't  you  lose  sight  of  that  for  a  single  min- 
ute!" he  raged.  "I'm  not  saying  anything 
about  myself;  perhaps  I  have  given  you 
cause  to  assume  that  you  can  pull  off  your 
brutal  initiation  stunts  on  me  whenever  you 
feel  like  it.  That's  all  right,  but  you've 
overdone  the  thing  this  time.  Miss  Milling- 
ton's  quarrel  is  my  quarrel.  If  I  can't  get 
you  in  any  other  way,  I'll  post  you  in  every 
club  you  belong  to  as  the  man  who  plays 
horse-laugh  jokes  on  women!" 

228 


"The  account  between  us  is  too  long  to  wait  for  daylight!" 


Watson  Grider 

At  this  outburst  Grider  only  laughed 
again,  appearing  to  be  entirely  and  quite 
joyously  impervious  to  either  scorn  or  red 
rage. 

"Perhaps  I  do  owe  you  both  an  apology 
—not  for  the  joke — that  is  too  ripping  good 
to  be  spoiled — but  for  breaking  your  night's 
rest  in  that  peppery  Scotchman's  birch-bark," 
he  offered.  "If  you'll  duck  under  the  raised 
deck,  you'll  find  two  dog-kennel  staterooms. 
The  port-side  kennel  is  yours,  Don,  and  the 
other  is  Miss  Millington's.  Suppose  you 
turn  in  and  get  your  nap  out.  To-morrow 
morning,  if  you  still  feel  in  the  humor  for  it, 
you  can  get  together  and  give  me  what  you 
seem  to  think  is  coming  to  me.  Shoo!  I 
can't  steer  this  boat  and  play  skittles  with 
you  at  the  same  time.  Run  along  to  bed — 
both  of  you!" 

With  such  a  case-hardened  barbarian  for 
a  host,  there  seemed  to  be  nothing  else  to  be 
done,  and  Prime  took  Lucetta's  arm  and 
helped  her  down  into  the  tiny  cabin.  It  was 
lighted,  and  the  doors  of  the  two  box-like 
staterooms  were  open.  Prime  felt  for  the 
button  on  the  jamb  of  the  right-hand  door 

229 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

and  Lucetta's  sleeping-niche  sprang  alight. 
She  looked  in  and  gave  a  little  cry  of 
astonishment. 

"My  suitcases!"  she  exclaimed;  "the 
ones  I  left  in  the  Quebec  hotel!" 

Prime  snapped  the  opposite  switch  and 
looked  on  his  own  side.  "My  auto  trunk, 
too,"  he  conceded  sourly.  "We  didn't  need 
any  more  evidence,  but  this  is  conclusive. 
Grider  has  had  his  horse-laugh,  and  the  least 
he  could  do  in  the  wind-up  was  to  bring  us 
our  belongings.  I  suppose  we  are  com- 
pelled to  be  indebted  to  him  for  getting  us 
out  of  the  scrape  with  Macdougal,  much  as 
it  goes  against  the  grain;  but  to-morrow  we'll 
settle  with  him." 

Lucetta  braced  herself  in  her  doorway 
against  the  surge  and  swing  of  the  racing 
cruiser. 

"He  doesn't  look  like  a  man  who  could 
be  so  wholly  lost  to  all  sense  of — of  the  fit- 
ness of  things,  Donald,"  she  ventured,  as 
one  who  would  not  be  immitigably  vindic- 
tive. 

"He  looks,  and  acts,  like  a  wild  ass  of  the 
desert!"  Prime  stormed,  in  a  fresh  access  of 

230 


Watson  Grider 

resentment.  And  then:  !( You'd  best  go  to 
bed  and  get  what  sleep  you  can.  Heaven 
only  knows  what  new  piece  of  buffoonery 
will  be  sprung  upon  us  to-morrow  morning." 

She  looked  up  with  the  adorable  little 
grimace,  a  copy  of  which  he  had  long  since 
resolved  to  wish  upon  his  next  and  most 
bewitching  heroine. 

"I  believe  you  are  angry  yet,"  she  chided, 
half  in  mockery.  "  I  like  you  best  when  you 
don't  scowl  so  ferociously,  Cousin  Donald. 
You  forget  that  we  have  agreed  that  it  wasn't 
all  bad.  Good  night."  And  she  closed  her 
door. 

Turning  out  of  his  box-berth  the  next 
morning,  Prime  found  the  sun  shining  broadly 
in  at  the  stateroom  port-light.  The  motor- 
boat  was  at  rest  and  the  machinery  was 
stopped.  A  bath,  a  shave,  and  a  complete 
change  to  fresh  haberdashery  made  him  feel 
somewhat  less  pugnacious,  and  stumbling 
up  the  companion  to  the  cockpit  he  saw  that 
the  cruiser  was  tied  up  at  a  wharf  on  the 
river  fringe  of  a  considerable  city;  saw,  also, 
that  Lucetta,  likewise  renewed  as  to  her  out- 
ward appearance,  was  awaiting  him. 

231 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"Where  is  Grider?"  he  demanded  shortly. 

"He  has  gone  somewhere  to  get  an  auto 
to  take  us  to  a  hotel." 

"What  city  is  this  ?" 

"It  is  Ottawa.  Don't  you  see  the  govern- 
ment buildings  up  there  on  the  hill?" 

Prime  was  silent  for  a  moment.  Then  he 
said:  "He  needn't  think  he  is  going  to  smooth 
it  all  over  by  showing  us  a  few  little  neigh- 
borly attentions.  We  are  back  in  the  good 
old  civilized  world  once  more,  and  we  are 
not  asking  any  favors  of  Watson  Grider." 

"Oh,  I  shouldn't  feel  that  way,  if  I  were 
you,"  she  qualified.  "He  seems  very  humble 
and  penitent  this  morning,  though  he  is 
still  twinkly-eyed,  and  I  couldn't  make  him 
talk  much.  He  said  we'd  want  to  be  having 
our  breakfast,  and 

"We  don't  breakfast  with  him,"  was  the 
crabbed  rejoinder. 

"Why,  Donald  !"  she  protested,  in  a  laugh- 
ing mockery  of  deprecatory  concern.  "I 
believe  you  are  still  angry.  You  really 
mustn't  hold  spite,  that  way.  It  isn't  nice— 
or  Bankhead-y." 

He  looked  her  fairly  in  the  eyes.     "Don't 
232 


Watson  Grider 

begin  by  throwing  the  old  minister  ancestor 
up  at  me,  Lucetta.  I  can't  help  the  grouch, 
and  I  don't  know  as  I  want  to  help  it.  Every 
time  I  think  of  you  lying  there  under  the  big 
spruces,  sick  and  discouraged,  suffering  for 
the  commonest  necessities  and  with  no  pos- 
sible chance  of  getting  them,  I  want  to  go 
out  and  swear  like  a  pirate  and  murder  some- 
body. Why  doesn't  he  bring  that  auto,  if 
he  is  going  to  ? " 

As  if  the  impatient  demand  had  evoked 
him,  Grider  appeared  on  the  wharf  and 
beckoned  to  them.  Prime  helped  his  com- 
panion up  to  the  string-piece,  and  had  only 
a  scowl  for  their  late  host  as  Grider  led  the 
way  to  the  street  and  a  waiting  auto.  The 
barbarian  stood  aside  while  Prime  was  putting 
Lucetta  into  the  car  and  clambering  in  after 
her.  Then  he  took  the  seat  beside  the  driver, 
and  no  word  was  said  until  the  car  was 
stopped  before  the  entrance  of  an  up-town 
hotel,  where  Grider  got  down  to  open  the 
tonneau  door  for  the  pair  on  the  rear  seat. 

"You'll  want  to  have  your  first  civilized 
breakfast  by  yourselves  and  I  shan't  butt 
in,"  he  offered  good-naturedly.  "Later  on, 

233 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

say  about  ten  o'clock,  I'll  be  glad  to  see  you 
both  in  the  ladies'  parlor — if  you  can  forgive 
me  that  far." 

Prime  made  no  reply,  but  after  they  were 
seated  in  the  comfortable  breakfast-room  and 
were  revelling  in  their  surroundings  and  in 
the  efficient  service  he  broke  out  again. 

"Grider  still  has  his  brass-bound  nerve 
with  him;  to  ask  us  to  meet  him !  I'd  see 
him  in  kingdom  come  first,  if  I  wasn't  spoil- 
ing to  tell  him  a  few  things." 

"Perhaps  he  wishes  to  try  to  explain," 
came  from  the  less  vindictive  side  of  the 
table-for-two.  "Think  a  moment,  Cousin 
Donald:  you  two  have  been  friends  and 
college  chums,  and — and  Mr.  Grider  has 
been  brotherly  good  to  you  in  times  past, 
hasn't  he  ?  And  I  don't  want  you  to  quarrel 
with  him." 

"Why  don't  you?" 

"Because  you  have  said  enough  to  make 
me  understand  that  you  are  doing  it  for  my 
sake.  That  won't  answer  at  all,  you  know." 

"I  don't  see  why  it  won't,"  Prime  ob- 
jected with  sudden  obtuseness. 

"For  the  best  possible  reason;  there  is 
234 


Watson  Grider 

another  woman  to  be  considered.  Sooner 
or  later  she  will  hear  that  you  have  broken 
with  your  best  friend  on  account  of  a — a 
person  she  has  never  even  heard  of,  and 
there  will  be  consequences." 

"Oh,  if  that  is  all" — and  then  he  laughed. 
"You  are  either  the  most  childlike  bit  of 
femininity  the  world  has  ever  seen — or  the 
most  wilfully  blind,  Lucetta." 

*  Cousin  Lucetta/  "  she  corrected.     "We 
are  back  among  the  conventions,  now." 

He  took  the  implied  readjustment  of  their 
relations  rather  hard. 

"That  wasn't  worthy  of  you,"  he  protested 
warmly.  "We  have  been  too  much  to  each 
other  in  the  past  month  to  go  back  of  the 
returns  in  that  way,  don't  you  think  ? " 

"I  can  tell  better  what  I  think  after  I 
have  climbed  down  into  my  little  groove 
in  the  girls'  school,"  she  returned  half-ab- 
sently,  and  beyond  this  the  talk  concerned 
itself  with  their  plans  for  the  immediate 
future,  Prime  still  insisting  that  he  meant 
to  see  his  table  companion  safely  home  and 
setting  the  difficulties  and  objections  aside 
as  one  who  had  a  perfect  right  to  do  so. 

235 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

When  the  leisurely  meal  was  finished  Prime 
pushed  his  chair  back  and  glanced  at  his 
watch. 

"It  is  nearly  ten  o'clock,"  he  announced. 
"Shall  we  go  and  meet  Grider?  Or  shall 
we  give  him  the  cold  shoulder  he  so  richly 
deserves  and  go  hunt  up  the  railroad  time- 
tables ?  It  is  for  you  to  say." 

She  decided  instantly. 

"I  think  we  ought  to  go  and  hear  what 
Mr.  Grider  has  to  say  for  himself.  We  owe 
him  that  much  for  rescuing  us  from  that 
terrible  old  Scotch  under-sheriff." 

And  together  they  sought  the  hotel  par- 
lors. 


236 


XXI 

THE    FAIRY   FORTUNE 

MR.  WATSON  GRIDER  was  not  alone  when 
they  found  him.  He  was  sharing  a  sofa  in 
the  public  parlor  with  an  elderly  little  gen- 
tleman whose  winter-apple  face  was  decorated 
with  mutton-chop  whiskers  and  wreathed  in 
smiles — the  smiles  of  a  listener  who  has  just 
heard  a  story  worth  retailing  at  the  dinner- 
table. 

The  two  stood  up  when  Prime  led  his 
companion  into  the  room,  and  Grider  did 
the  honors. 

"Miss  Millington,  let  me  introduce  Mr. 

Shellaby,  an  old  friend  of  my  father's  and 

the  senior  member  of  the  firm  of  Shellaby, 

Grice,  and  Shellaby,  solicitors.    Mr.  Shellaby 

—Miss  Millington  and  Mr.  Donald  Prime." 

The  little  gentleman  adjusted  his  eye- 
glasses and  looked  the  pair  over  carefully. 
Then  the  twinkling  smile  hovered  again  at 
the  corners  of  the  near-sighted  eyes. 

"Are  you — ah — are  you  aware  of  your 
23? 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

relationship  to  this  young  lady,  Mr.  Prime?" 
he  asked. 

Prime  made  a  sign  of  assent.  "  We  figured 
it  out  one  evening  over  our  camp-fire.  We 
are  third  cousins,  I  believe." 

"Exactly,"  said  Mr.  Shellaby,  matching 
his  slender  fingers  and  making  a  little  bow. 
"Now  another  question,  if  you  please:  Mr. 
Grider  tells  me  that  you  have  just  returned 
from  a  most  singular  and  adventurous  ex- 
perience in  the  wilds  of  the  northern  woods. 
This  experience,  I  understand,  was  entirely 
involuntary  on  your  part.  Have  you — ah — 
formulated  any  theory  to  account  for  your — 
ah — abduction  ?" 

Prime  glanced  at  Grider  and  frowned. 

"We  know  all  we  need  to  know  about 
that  part  of  it,"  he  rejoined  curtly.  "Mr. 
Grider  is  probably  still  calling  it  a  practical 
joke;  but  we  call  it  an  outrage." 

The  little  man  smiled  again.  "Exactly," 
he  agreed;  and  then:  "Do  you  happen  to 
know  what  day  of  the  month  this  is  ? " 

Prime  shook  his  head. 

"We  have  lost  count  of  the  days.  I  kept 
a  notched  stick  for  a  while,  but  I  lost  it 
along  toward  the  last." 

238 


The  Fairy  Fortune 

Mr.  Shellaby  waved  them  to  chairs,  say- 
ing: "Be  seated,  if  you  please;  we  may  as 
well  be  comfortable  as  we  talk.  This  is  the 
last  day  of  July.  Does  that  mean  anything 
in  particular  to  either  of  you  ?" 

Lucetta  gave  a  little  cry  of  surprise. 

"It  does  to  me,"  she  said  quickly.  "Did 
you — did  you  put  an  advertisement  in  a 
Cleveland  newspaper  addressed  to  me,  Mr. 
Shellaby?" 

"We  did;  and  we  also  advertised  for  the 
heirs  of  Roger  Prime,  of  Batavia,  New  York. 
We  believed  at  the  time  that  it  was  a  mere 
matter  of  form;  in  fact,  when  we  drew  his 
will  our  client  informed  us  that  there  would 
most  probably  be  no  results.  He  was  of  the 
opinion  that  neither  Roger  Prime  nor  Clarissa 
Millington  had  left  any  living  children." 

"Your  client?"  Prime  interrupted.  "May 
we  ask  who  he  is  ?" 

"Was"  corrected  the  small  man  gravely. 
"Mr.  Jasper  Bankhead  died  last  January. 
You  didn't  know  him,  I'm  sure;  quite  pos- 
sibly you  have  never  heard  of  him  until  this 


moment/ 


"We  both  know  of  him,"  Prime  amended. 
He  was  my  great-uncle,   and   a  cousin  of 

239 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

Miss  Millington's  grandmother.  He  was 
scarcely  more  than  a  family  tradition  to 
either  of  us,  however.  We  had  both  been 
told  that  he  went  west  as  a  young  man  and 
was  never  heard  of  afterward." 

Mr.  Shellaby  nodded  soberly. 

"Mr.  Bankhead  was  a  rather  peculiar 
character  in  some  respects;  quite  eccentric, 
in  fact.  He  accumulated  a  great  deal  of 
property  in  British  Columbia — in  mining 
enterprises — and  it  was  only  in  his  latter 
years  that  he  came  here  to  live.  We  drew 
his  will,  as  I  have  said.  He  was  without 
family,  and  he  left  the  bulk  of  his  estate — 
something  over  two  millions — to  various 
charities  and  hospitals.  There  were  other 
legacies,  to  be  sure,  and  among  them  one 
which  was  to  be  divided  equally  between, 
or  among,  the  direct  heirs,  if  any  could  be 
discovered,  of  Clarissa  Millington  and  Roger 
Prime." 

"And  if  no  such  heirs  could  be  found?" 
Prime  inquired. 

"Our  client  was  quite  sure  that  they 
wouldn't  be  found.  It  seems  that  he  had 
previously  had  some  inquiries  made  on  his 

240 


The  Fairy  Fortune 

own  account.  For  that  reason  he  placed  a 
comparatively  short  time  limit  upon  our 
efforts  and  prescribed  their  form.  We  were 
to  advertise  in  certain  newspapers,  and  if 
there  should  be  no  answer  within  six  months 
of  the  date  of  his  death  the  legacy  in  ques- 
tion was  to  revert  to  his  private  secretary, 
a  young  man  who  had  served  him  in  many 
capacities,  and  who  was,  by  the  by,  already 
generously  provided  for  in  a  separate  be- 
quest." 

Lucetta's  gray  eyes  lighted  suddenly  and 
she  spoke  with  a  little  catching  of  her  breath. 

"The  name  of  that  young  man,  Mr. 
Shellaby,  is  Horace  Bandish,  isn't  it?"  she 
suggested. 

" Quite  so,"  nodded  the  little  man;  and 
then,  with  the  amused  twinkle  returning  to 
point  the  bit  of  dry  humor:  "I  am  sorry 
to  ha've  to  spoil  your  estimate  of  Mr.  Grider's 
capabilities  as  a  practical  joker;  yes,  very 
sorry,  indeed ;  but  I'm  afraid  I  must.  Bandish 
was  your  kidnapper,  you  know,  and  it  is 
owing  entirely  to  Mr.  Grider's  energetic 
efforts  that  the  fellow  is  at  present  safely 
lodged  in  the  Ottawa  jail  awaiting  indict- 

241 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

ment  and  trial.  In  order  that  he  might  be 
certain  of  adding  your  legacy  to  his  own,  he 
meant  to  deprive  you  both  of  any  possible 
opportunity  of  communicating  with  us  before 
July  thirty-first.  The  young  woman  who 
calls  herself  his  wife  was  his  accomplice,  but 
she  has  disappeared.  Mr.  Grider  can  give 
you  the  details  of  the  plot  better  than  I  can." 

"Then  Grider  didn't — then  the  legacy  is 
ours?"  Prime  stammered,  clutching  man- 
fully for  handholds  in  the  grapple  with  this 
entirely  new  array  of  things  incredible. 

"Precisely,  Mr.  Prime;  yours  and  Miss 
Millington's.  There  will  be  some  legal  for- 
malities, to  be  sure,  but  Mr.  Grider  assures 
us  that  you  can  comply  with  them.  Com- 
pared with  Mr.  Bankhead's  undivided  total, 
the  amount  of  the  legacy  is  not  great;  some 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  less  the  costs 
of  administration,  to  be  divided  equally  be- 
tween you  if  you  prove  to  be  the  only  sur- 
viving heirs  direct  of  the  two  persons  named 
in  the  will." 

Prime  turned  slowly  upon  his  companion 
castaway. 

"You  said  you  wanted  enough,  but  not 
242 


The  Fairy  Fortune 

too  much,"  he  reminded  her  solemnly.  "I 
hope  you're  not  disappointed,  either  way. 
At  all  events,  you'll  never  have  to  cook  for 
a  man  again  unless  you  really  wish  to,  and 
you  can  have  your  wish  about  the  world 
travel,  too." 

"And  you  can  have  yours  about  the  writ- 
ing of  the  leisurely  book,"  she  flashed  back; 
"about  that,  and — and " 

Prime's  laugh  ignored  the  presence  of 
Grider  and  the  lawyer. 

"And  the  imaginary  girl,  you  were  going 
to  say  ?  Yes;  I  shall  certainly  marry  her,  if 
she'll  have  me." 

Mr.  Shellaby  was  on  his  feet  and  bowing 
again. 

"I  think  I  have  said  all  that  needs  to  be 
said  here  and  now,"  he  concluded  mildly. 
"If  you  will  excuse  me,  I'll  go.  We  are  a 
rather  busy  office.  Later,  Mr.  Grider  may 
bring  you  to  us  and  we  can  set  the  legal 
machinery  in  motion.  I  congratulate  you 
both  very  heartily,  I'm  sure,"  and  he  shook 
hands  all  around  and  backed  away. 

When  they  were  left  alone  with  the  bar- 
barian, Prime  wheeled  short  upon  him. 

243 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

"Watson,  will  you  raise  your  right  hand 
and  swear  that  this  isn't  another  twist  in 
your  infernal  joke?"  he  demanded.  "Be- 
cause, if  it  is 

Grider  fell  back  into  the  nearest  chair 
and  chuckled  like  a  fat  boy  at  a  play. 

"If  it  only  were  !"  he  gloated.  "Wouldn't 
it  be  rich?  Oh,  Great  Peter!  why  didn't  I 
think  of  it  in  time  and  run  a  sham  lawyer  in 
on  you  ?  It  would  have  been  as  easy  as 
rolling  off  a  log.  Unhappily,  Don,  it's  all 
too  true.  I  didn't  invent  it — more's  the 
pity!" 

Prime  stood  over  the  joker,  menacing  him 
with  a  clenched  fist.  "If  you  want  to  go  on 
living  and  spending  your  swollen  fortune, 
you'll  tell  us  all  the  ins  and  outs  of  it,"  he 
rasped,  in  well-assumed  ferocity. 

"I  was  only  waiting  for  an  invitation," 
was  the  laughing  rejoinder.  "When  you 
didn't  turn  up  in  Boston  to  go  motoring 
with  me  I  ran  over  to  New  York  and  broke 
into  your  rooms.  On  your  desk  I  found  a 
telegram  purporting  to  have  come  from  me 
at  Quebec.  Since  I  hadn't  wired  you  from 
Quebec,  or  anywhere  else,  I  began  to  ask 

244 


The  Fairy  Fortune 

questions.  Your  janitor  answered  the  first 
one:  you  had  already  gone  to  Canada.  I 
couldn't  imagine  what  was  going  on,  but  it 
seemed  to  be  worth  following  up,  so  I  took 
the  next  train  for  Quebec." 

"And  you  didn't  wire  ahead  ?"  said  Prime. 

"No;  it  didn't  occur  to  me,  but  it  wouldn't 
have  done  any  good.  Your  disappearance 
was  two  days  old  when  I  reached  Quebec. 
You  weren't  missed  much,  but  Miss  Milling- 
ton  was;  the  school-teachers  were  milling 
around  and  raising  all  sorts  of  a  row.  But 
in  another  day  it  quieted  down  flat.  Some- 
body started  the  story  that  you  two  had  run 
off  together  to  get  married;  that  it  had  been 
all  cut  and  dried  between  you  beforehand." 

"That  was  probably  a  part  of  the  plot — 
to  account  for  us  in  that  way,"  Lucetta  put 
in. 

"No  doubt  it  was,"  Grider  went  on.  "But 
the  elopement  story  didn't  satisfy  me.  I 
knew  there  wasn't  any  reason  in  the  wide 
world  why  Don  shouldn't  get  married  openly, 
if  he  could  find  any  girl  foolish  enough  to 
say  'yes/  so  I  simply  discounted  the  gossip 
and  wired  for  detectives.  A  very  little  sleuth 

245 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

work  developed  the  fact  that  each  of  you 
had  been  seen  last  in  company  with  one  of 
the  Bandishes.  That  gave  us  a  sort  of  a 
clew,  and  we  began  to  trail  Mr.  Horace  Ban- 
dish  and  dig  up  his  record." 

"And  while  you  were  doing  all  this  for 
us,  we  ...  honestly,  Mr.  Grider,  I  am 
ashamed  to  tell  you  what  we  were  saying  of 
you,"  said  the  young  woman  in  penitent 
self-abasement. 

"Oh,  that  was  all  right.  In  times  past  I 
had  given  Don  plenty  of  material  of  that 
sort  to  work  on;  only  I  wish  I  had  known 
how  you  were  looking  at  it — that  you  were 
charging  it  all  up  to  me.  It  would  have 
lightened  the  gloom  immensely.  But  to 
get  on:  we  trailed  Bandish,  as  I  say,  and 
found  that  he  had  had  an  aeroplane  shipped 
to  him  at  Quebec  a  few  days  before  your 
arrival  there.  That  looked  a  bit  suspicious, 
and  a  little  more  digging  made  it  look  more 
so.  The  'plane  had  been  unloaded  and  carted 
away,  and  a  few  days  later  had  been  brought 
back  and  shipped  to  Ottawa.  That  left  a 
pretty  plain  trail,  but  still  there  was  no  evi- 
dence of  criminality." 

246 


The  Fairy  Fortune 

"Of  course,  you  didn't  know  anything 
about  the  legacy,  at  that  stage  of  it  ? "  Prime 
threw  in. 

"Not  a  thing  in  the  world.  More  than 
that,  Bandish's  record  was  decently  good. 
We  found  that  he  had  been  a  sort  of  general 
factotum  for  a  rich  old  man,  and  had  been 
left  comfortably  well  off  when  his  employer 
died.  There  was  absolutely  no  motive  in 
sight;  no  reason  on  earth  why  he  should 
drug  a  couple  of  total  strangers  and  blot  them 
out.  Just  the  same,  I  was  confident  that  he 
had  done  it,  and  that  I  should  eventually 
find  you  by  keeping  cases  on  him.  So  I 
dropped  the  detectives,  who  were  beginning 
to  give  me  the  laugh  for  being  so  pig-headed 
about  an  ordinary  elopement,  gathered  up 
your  belongings  on  the  chance  that  you'd 
need  'em  if  I  should  make  good  in  the  search 
for  you,  and  came  here  to  Ottawa  to  keep  in 
touch  with  Bandish." 

Prime's  smile  was  grim.  "You  were  taking 
a  lot  of  trouble  for  two  people  who  were 
just  about  that  time  calling  you  all  the  hard 
names  in  the  category,"  he  interposed. 

"Wasn't  I?"  said  the  barbarian  with  a 
247 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

grin.  "  But  never  mind  about  that.  I  came 
here,  as  I  said,  and  settled  down  to  keep  an 
eye  on  Horace.  For  quite  some  time  I  didn't 
learn  anything  new.  I  found  that  Bandish 
was  a  club  man,  well  known  and  rather 
popular;  also  that  he  was  an  amateur  aviator 
and  had  made  a  number  of  exhibition  flights. 
Everybody  knew  him  and  everybody  seemed 
to  like  him.  In  the  course  of  time  we  met 
at  one  of  the  clubs,  and  I  watched  him  care- 
fully when  we  were  introduced.  If  he  had 
sent  the  forged  telegram  it  was  proof  that 
he  knew  me  by  name,  at  least.  But  he  never 
made  a  sign. 

"It  was  about  a  week  later  than  this  when 
I  stumbled  upon  Mr.  Shellaby  and  got  my 
first  real  clew  in  the  story  of  the  legacy 
muddle.  Of  course,  that  opened  all  the  doors, 
and  after  that  I  laid  for  Horace  like  a  cat 
watching  a  mouse.  Before  long  I  could  see 
that  he  was  growing  mighty  nervous  about 
something,  and  the  next  thing  I  knew  he 
turned  up  missing.  Right  there  I  lost  my 
head  and  wasted  two  whole  days  trying  to 
find  out  which  railroad  he  had  taken  out  of 
town.  Late  in  the  evening  of  the  second  day 

248 


The  Fairy  Fortune 

I  learned,  by  the  merest  bit  of  bull-headed 
luck,  that  he  had  gone  up  the  Riviere  du 
Lievres  in  a  motor-launch.  I  had  a  quick 
hunch  that  that  motor-launch  was  pointing 
in  your  direction  and  that  it  was  up  to  me 
to  chase  him  and  find  you  and  get  you  back 
here  before  the  thirty-first.  Three  hours 
later  I  had  borrowed  the  Sprite  and  was  after 
him." 

"He  found  us,"  said  Prime,  rather  grit- 
tingly.  "We  had  stopped  to  patch  our  canoe, 
and  he  came  up  in  the  night  and  cut  another 
hole  in  it.  I  mistook  him  for  you — which 
was  the  chief  reason  why  I  didn't  take  a 
pot-shot  at  him  as  he  was  running  away." 

"I  knew  I  had  no  chance  to  overtake 
him,"  Grider  went  on,  "but  it  seemed  a  safe 
bet  that  I'd  get  him  coming  out.  I  did;  cap- 
tured him,  took  him  ashore,  built  a  fire,  and 
told  him  I  was  going  to  roast  him  alive  if  he 
didn't  come  across  with  the  facts.  He  held 
out  for  a  while,  but  .finally  told  me  the  whole 
of  it :  how  he  had  figured  to  get  you  two  to- 
gether in  Quebec  after  he  had  learned  that 
you,  Miss  Millington,  were  due  to  be  there 
with  the  teachers.  You  see,  he  knew  all 

249 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

about  you — both  of  you.  As  Mr.  Bank- 
head's  secretary  he  had  made,  at  Mr.  Bank- 
head's  dictation,  all  the  former  inquiries, 
and,  of  course,  had  carefully  kept  the  answers 
from  reaching  the  old  gentleman.  With  a 
little  more  cooking  he  told  me  how  he  and 
the  woman  had  drugged  you  both,  after 
which  he  had  carried  you  in  the  'plane  to 
the  shore  of  some  unpronounceable  lake  in 
the  north  woods." 

"What  did  he  mean  to  do  ? — let  us  starve 
to  death?"  Prime  asked. 

"Oh,  no;  nothing  so  murderous  as  that ! 
He  had  it  all  doped  out  beforehand.  There 
is  a  Hudson  Bay  post  on  one  of  the  streams 
flowing  into  the  lake,  and  he  had  arranged 
with  a  couple  of  half-breed  canoe-men  to 
happen  along  and  pick  you  up  and  bring 
you  back,  stipulating  only  that  they  should 
kill  time  enough  to  make  the  return  trip  use 
up  the  entire  month  of  July.  As  the  fatal 
date  drew  near,  he  grew  uneasy  and  made 
the  launch  trip  to  see  to  it  personally  that 
you  were  not  getting  along  too  fast.  He 
found  your  camp  and  cut  your  canoe  merely 
to  add  a  little  more  delay  for  good  measure. 

250 


The  Fairy  Fortune 

He  couldn't  tell  me  what  had  become  of  his 
half-breeds." 

Prime  laughed.  "I  suppose  the  old  Scotch 
under-sheriff  told  you,  didn't  he  ? " 

"He  tried  to  tell  me  that  you  and  Miss 
Millington  had  assassinated  the  two  men 
and  stolen  their  canoe  and  outfit.  You  didn't 
do  that  ? — or  did  you  ?" 

"Hardly,"  Prime  denied.  Then  he  told 
the  story  of  the  finding  of  the  dead  men, 
capping  it  with  an  account  of  the  chance 
visit  of  Jean  Ba'tiste. 

Grider  left  his  chair  and  took  a  turn  up 
and  down  the  room. 

"It  was  a  great  adventure,"  he  declared, 
coming  back  to  them.  "Some  day  you  are 
going  to  tell  me  all  about  it,  and  the  kind  of 
a  time  you  had.  I'll  bet  it  was  fierce — some 
parts  of  it,  anyway.  I  can't  answer  for  you, 
Miss  Millington;  but  what  Don  doesn't 
know  about  roughing  it  is — or  used  to  be— 
good  and  plenty." 

"You  sent  Bandish  back  to  town  after 
you  were  through  with  him?"  Prime  in- 
quired. 

"Yes.     I  had  taken  a  pair  of  handcuffs 
251 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

along,  just  on  general  principles,  and  I  lent 
him  my  engineer  to  run  the  launch.  After- 
ward, I  kept  on  up-stream  in  the  Sprite, 
hoping  to  meet  you  coming  down;  and  hop- 
ing against  hope  that  we  would  be  able  to 
beat  the  calendar  back  to  Ottawa." 

"We  never  should  have  beaten  it  if  the  old 
Scotchman  hadn't  taken  a  hand,'*  was  Prime's 
comment.  "He  saved  us  at  least  a  full 
day." 

Grider  was  edging  toward  the  door.  "I 
guess  you  don't  need  me  any  more  just 
now,"  he  offered.  "I'm  due  to  go  and  thank 
the  good-natured  lumber  king  who  lent  me 
the  Sprite.  By  and  by,  after  the  dust  has 
settled  a  bit,  I'll  come  around  and  show  you 
where  Mr.  Shellaby  holds  forth." 

"One  minute,  Mr.  Grider,"  Lucetta  in- 
terposed hastily.  "We  can't  let  you  go 
without  asking  your  forgiveness  for  the  way 
.in  which  we  have  been  vilifying  you  for  a 
whole  month,  and  for  what  we  both  said 
to  you  last  night.  I  must  speak  for  myself, 
at  least,  and— 

"Don't,"  said  Grider,  laughing  again. 
"It's  all  in  the  day's  work.  As  it  happened, 

252 


The  Fairy  Fortune 

I  wasn't  the  goat  this  time,  but  that  isn't 
saying  that  I  mightn't  have  done  something 
quite  as  uncivilized  if  you  had  given  me  a 
chance.  You  two  gave  me  one  of  the  few 
perfect  moments  of  a  rather  uneventful  life 
last  night  when  you  made  me  understand 
that  you  were  giving  me  credit  for  the  whole 
thing — as  a  joke  !  I  only  wish  I  could  invent 
one  half  as  good.  And  that  reminds  me, 
Don;  can  you — er — do  you  think  you'll 
be  able  to  put  a  real  woman  into  the  next 
story?" 

For  some  few  minutes  after  the  barbarian 
had  ducked  and  disappeared  a  stiff  little 
silence  fell  upon  the  two  he  had  left  behind. 
In  writing  about  it  Prime  would  have  called 
it  an  interregnum  of  readjustment.  He  had 
gone  to  a  window  to  stare  aimlessly  down  into 
the  busy  street,  and  Lucetta  was  sitting  with 
her  chin  in  her  cupped  palms  and  her  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  rather  garish  pattern  of  the 
paper  on  the  opposite  wall.  After  a  time 
Prime  pulled  himself  together  and  went  back 
to  her. 

"It  is  all  changed,  isn't  it?"  he  said,  in  a 
rather  flat  voice.  "Everything  is  changed. 

253 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

You  are  no  longer  a  teacher,  working  for 
your  living.  You  are  an  heiress,  with  a  snug 
little  fortune  in  your  own  right." 

She  looked  up  at  him  with  the  bright 
little  smile  which  had  been  brought  over 
intact  from  the  days  of  the  banished  con- 
ventions. 

"Whatever  you  say  I  am,  you  are,"  she 
retorted  cheerfully.  "Only  I  can't  quite 
believe  it  yet — about  the  money,  you  know." 

:<  You'd  better,"  he  returned  gloomily. 
"  Besides,  it  is  just  what  you  said  you  wanted 
— neither  too  little  nor  too  much:  one  hun- 
dred thousand  at  a  good,  safe  six  per  cent 
will  give  you  an  income  of  six  thousand  a 
year.  You  can  travel  on  that  for  the  re- 
mainder of  your  natural  life." 

"Easily,"  she  rejoined.  "And  you  can 
write  the  leisurely  book  and  marry  the  girl. 
Perhaps  you  will  be  doing  both  while  I  am 
getting  ready  to  go  on  my  travels.  You 
won't  insist  upon  going  back  to  Ohio  with 
me  now,  will  you  ?  You — you  ought  to  go 
straight  to  the  girl,  don't  you  think?" 

"You  are  forgetting  that  I  said  she  was 
an  imaginary  girl,"  he  parried. 

254 


The  Fairy  Fortune 

"You  said  so  at  first;  but  afterward  you 
admitted  that  she  wasn't.  Also,  you  promised 
me  you  would  show  me  her  picture  after  we 
should  get  out  of  the  woods." 

"I  have  never  had  her  picture/'  he  denied. 
"I  said  I  would  show  you  what  she  looks 
like.  Come  to  the  window  where  the  light 
is  better." 

She  went  with  him  half-mechanically.  Be- 
tween the  two  windows  there  was  an  old- 
fashioned  pier-glass  set  in  the  wall.  Before 
she  realized  what  he  was  doing  he  had  led 
her  before  the  mirror. 

"There  she  is,  Lucetta,"  he  said  softly; 
"the  only  girl  there  is — or  ever  will  be." 

She  started  back  with  a  little  cry,  putting 
out  her  hands  as  if  to  push  him  away. 

"No,  Donald — a  thousand  times  no!"  she 
flashed  out.  "Do  you  think  I  don't  know 
that  this  is  only  another  way  of  telling  me 
how  sorry  you  are  for  me  ?  You  know  well 
enough  what  people  will  say  when  they  hear 
how  we  have  been  together  for  a  whole 
month,  alone;  and  in  your  splendid  chivalry 
you  would " 

He  did  not  let  her  finish.  The  hotel  parlor 
255 


Stranded  in  Arcady 

was  supposed  to  be  a  public  room,  but  he 
ignored  that  and  took  her  in  his  arms. 

"From  the  first  day,  Lucetta,  dear — from 
the  very  first  day!"  he  argued  passionately. 
"And  it  grew  and  grew  with  your  absolute, 
your  simply  angelic  trust  in  me  until  I  was 
half-mad  with  the  desire  to  tell  you.  But  I 
couldn't  tell  you  then;  I  couldn't  even  let 
you  suspect  and  still  be  what  you  were  be- 
lieving me  to  be.  Don't  you  think  you  could 
learn,  in  time,  you  know,  to — to " 

Her  face  was  hidden,  but  she  made  her 
refusal  quite  positive. 

"No,  Donald,  I  can  never  learn  it — again. 
Because,  you  see,  in  spite  of  the  other  girl 
I  was  believing  in — that  you  made  me  be- 
lieve in — I —  Oh,  it  was  wicked,  wicked  ! — 
but  I  couldn't  help  it!  And  all  the  time  I 
was  sc-scared  perfectly  frantic  for  fear  you 
would  find  it  out !" 

"You  were,  were  you  ?"  he  laughed  hap- 
pily. "Perhaps  I  did  find  it  out — just  a  lit- 
tle. .  .  ." 

It  was  something  like  an  hour  later,  and 
an  overruling  Providence  had  graciously  pre- 
256 


The  Fairy  Fortune 

served  the  privacy  of  the  public  parlor  for 
them  during  the  entire  length  of  the  precious 
interval,  when  Prime  looked  at  his  watch 
and  said:  "Heavens,  Lucetta !  it's  nearly 
noon !  Let's  go  quickly  and  beard  the  Shel- 
laby  in  his  den  before  he  goes  to  luncheon. 
The  fairy  fortune  may  escape  us  yet  if  we 
don't  hurry  up  and  nab  it." 

She  had  risen  with  him,  and  her  eyes  were 
shining  when  she  lifted  her  face  and  let  him 
see  them. 

"As  if  the  money,  or  anything  else  in  this 
world,  could  make  any  difference  to  either 
of  us  now,  Donald,  dear!"  she  protested, 
with  a  fine  scorn  of  such  inconsequent  things 
as  fairy  fortunes. 

And  Prime,  seeing  the  unashamed  love  in 
the  shining  eyes,  joyously  agreed  with  her. 

THE  END 


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